The Elves in the Alley
by Argonaut57
Summary: A disturbance in an alley leads to the discovery of two tiny bodies, reduced to skeletons by an impossibly short, fierce fire. A case, then, for Dr Brennan and the Jeffersonian team. But the bodies are not human, and the two consultants joining the team will change Brennans' ideas for ever!
1. Chapter 1

**The Elves in the Alley**

**Part One: Cremation**

It's not unusual for those who work crime scenes to refer to burned bodies as 'crispy critters', but nobody here had done so. Temperance Brennan saw why as the ME moved back from the first body. She felt Booth stiffen beside her, his rage almost a palpable thing. As little as a year ago, she herself would not have been so moved by the sight of those tiny bones, with a few shreds of blackened flesh and fabric clinging to them. She would have reasoned that, across the world, children died unnoticed on a daily basis, and were conceived and born with equal carelessness in even greater numbers. But now, with Christines' tiny face a constant in her mind, she felt a flash of pure hatred for whoever could do such a thing.

_Primal instinct. _She thought. _I am a mother now, my perceptions are changed. The death of a child has become personal._

The ME explained. "I know this is recent, it only happened tonight. But these bodies are too far gone for me to do anything with them. I, we, thought that your expertise was needed, Dr Brennan. The other one's over there."

The other body huddled against the alley wall. It was the same size, perhaps a little larger. It was hard to tell with certainty, as even with the lights the police had brought, little detail could be seen.

"Where did the fire start?" Booth asked.

"Fires." This was a woman, a tall, robust brunette in a firefighters' uniform. "I'm the Fire Investigation Officer at the station that got the call. There are two seats of fire, one for each body, and the fires didn't spread. They were confined to the victims. I can't find any incendiary devices, or any obvious trace of accelerant. I'll keep looking, but if I didn't know better, I'd have to say this was spontaneous combustion!"

"Spontaneous Human Combustion is a myth." Brennan pointed out. "Every supposed case which has been properly investigated has revealed an external cause for the fire. Someone set these bodies alight."

"And they did it after they were dead." The ME pointed out. "To this one at least." He pointed to the body Brennan had seen first, the one on the middle of the alley. "Cause of death for this one was GSW to the back of the head. While kneeling, if I'm any judge."

"Execution style." Booth's voice was ragged, guttural with anger. "Who executes a kid?"

The ME thought better of answering directly, saying instead. "I think the other one was also shot, but in the chest. At least, there are injuries to the ribs which look like GSW. In the morning, the CSUs are going to look for any slugs -we won't find them in this light.

"We did find these, though!"

He passed over some evidence bags. One contained several swabs. "One from each blood pool we found." Another held a semi-automatic pistol, Booth recognised it as a SIG-Sauer model, with a silencer screwed into the barrel. The third held a thin wooden stick, about fifteen inches long.

"We found the gun near the head-shot victim." The ME told them. "The stick was further up the alley, over against the wall. I picked it up because it doesn't seem to belong here -it's not your normal city litter."

"Were there any witnesses?" Brennan asked, knowing that Booth would normally ask this question if he were not so angry and shaken.

A uniformed officer, who'd been hovering on the edge of the conversation, came forward. Most of the people here had their TVs on, and didn't hear anything. But an old lady on the third floor says she heard some popping noises and some flashes of light. She thought it was kids playing laser tag or something – didn't think anything of it. This is a good neighbourhood, everybody has jobs, does OK. People keep themselves to themselves, so nobody thought to look out until they saw the fires.

"Seems as soon as people started looking out of windows and yelling, the fires went out, _pouf!_ Like that. Last thing anybody heard was a loud bang."

The fire investigator shook her head. "No fire I ever heard of could burn two bodies this badly in minutes, then just simply be put out, snuffed, immediately. It's not possible!"

"Then there will be another explanation." Brennan said firmly. "In the meantime, have all this taken to the Jeffersonian. Booth, we need to go home, the babysitter is already on overtime!"

Her uncharacteristic humour was enough to shake Booth out of his angry brooding. Even so, Brennan was aware that he got up several times in the night to check on Christine. She was pleased.

The big man shook his head. "We got to get him to a doctor!" He told the blonde woman. She made a dismissive gesture with one scarlet-nailed hand.

"A muggle doctor would be worse than useless." She said flatly. "We need a Healer, but one who can be discreet. I need time to find one. The potion will hold him for a while, just take care of him."

The man's iron muscles tensed under his ebony skin. "Jeez, lady, I've seen hard but you'd give adamantium a run! His arm looks like it's gonna fall off any minute, and sooner or later they're gonna smell him in the next apartment. You damn well better hurry, because if he dies, I'm not going down for it alone!"

Arastoo Vaziri had clearly worked through the night, but gave his report in a crisp, professional manner.

"I cleaned off the skeletons, and separated out the other material for Dr Saroyan and Dr Hodgins." He told them. "One of the victims was killed with a single shot to the back of the skull at a downward angle. The bullet exited through the hard palate and came out of the mouth, dislocating the jaw as it did so.

"The second appears to have been shot twice through the body, but at an upward angle.

"That's all I had time to do, except for one thing. Neither of the victims was a child."

"You're sure?" Booth was intense.

"Positive, I couldn't make that kind of mistake, Agent Booth. _You_ couldn't, not after having worked with Dr Brennan for so long. The cranial sutures are completely fused, which doesn't happen until adulthood. Also, with children that small, you'd expect them to still have some milk teeth, but all the teeth in both jaws are permanent, and there are no unerupted rear molars – wisdom teeth. These were adults, despite their size."

Booth gave a wry grin. "I shouldn't feel relieved, people are dead. But I do!"

Brennan gripped his hand. "Of course you do. The urge to protect the young is highly developed in all mammals."

"OK," Dr Saroyan said. "We've got work to do, everyone!"

They did their work. They did it quickly and thoroughly. So much so that Camille had to call a lunchtime meeting.

"Right!" She said. "Who wants to start?"

There was a silence, then Hodgins jumped into the gap.

"I managed to isolate various traces and particulates from the skin and fabric samples you gave me." He said. "A lot of it was what you'd expect in an alley but there were other things.

"Flower pollen, for instance, from Asiatic lilies and hybrid tea-roses. Not much help, because they can come from anywhere. A beeswax-based furniture polish that doesn't match any commercially-available formula and could be home-made.

"But I did find traces of vegetable matter that I identified as coming from this!" He flipped an image from his tablet onto the plasma screen. The picture was of something that looked a lot like a carrot, but with a creamy-white skin.

"_Pastinaca sativa_, the common parsnip!" Hodgins announced. "A root vegetable resembling a carrot. Now while it is grown in some places in America, it's not common and not used much. In England, on the other hand, it's quite popular, especially roasted and served as part of a Sunday lunch.

"Which brings me to another trace I found. _Camellia sinensis_, or Indian tea. Specifically, an Assam blend marketed by a British company called Twinings.

"Finally, there's this!" He flipped another image onto the screen, this one of a badly-scorched fabric tag. "The textile remains found were consistent with common cotton towels, but this tag was still attached to one of them. It's badly burned, but under UV..."

The image changed, revealing printing on the tag. Most of it was too small to be read, but the word _Tesco_ was clearly visible.

"Tesco is the name of a major British supermarket chain." Hodgins told them. "I've checked, and they don't have any Tesco stores in the US, though they do operate a small chain of foodstores called _Fresh & Easy_ across California, Nevada and Arizona."

"So you're saying our victims are British?" Booth asked.

"I'm saying," said Hodgins carefully, "that they're likely to have been in England shortly before they died."

"What do you have, Seeley?" Camiile asked.

Booth shrugged. "We checked the gun. It's a SIG-Sauer P226 Tactical nine mil. It still has a serial number, we identified it as one of a batch sold to a company called Changeling Securities in 2000. We're following up on that.

"There were prints on the gun, but they're not in the system. If Hodgins is right about the English connection, it could be worth asking Interpol and Scotland Yard to check. We also checked the magazine clip and found some other prints. Those _are_ in the system, they belong to a former Recon Marine named Ralph Cole, so we're checking up on him, too.

"The silencer was something else. It was home-made. Special Forces soldiers get taught how to make silencers out of all kinds of stuff. They're usually only good for four or five shots, but it explains why nobody heard anything."

"And that," said Camille, "is everything we have that makes any sense! From here on in, it gets weird! Dr Brennan?"

Brennan's voice was flat, almost inflectionless. "As Dr Vaziri reported, the skeletons are of adults, one male, the other female. However, I have not been able to ascertain anything else about them that fits with anything else known to me.

"They are not Pygmies, in fact the skeletons do not match the parameters of any known ethnicity. Similarly, I was unable to find any traces of achondroplasia, growth hormone deficiency, malnutrition or any other medical cause to account for their small size. The victims were both about three feet tall, with disproportionately large heads, hands and feet. The eye-sockets were also too large in proportion to the skulls.

"Cause of death in both cases is, however, quite clear. The male died from a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Size of the wound is consistent with the pistol recovered at the scene. The female appears to have been shot twice, through the body, from the front but at an upward angle.

"That is all I have for now."

"It gets worse." Camille said. "The few bits of tissue left were too degraded for DNA analysis, but I got some bone samples and was able to isolate mitochondrial DNA.

"It's not human."

There was a moments' silence, then Hodgins gave whoop of pure glee.

"I _told_ you!" He shouted. "I told you they were here! Wow! We've got alien skeletons right in this lab!"

"That's ridiculous!" Brennan snapped. "It must be human. If there were aliens on Earth, they would establish proper relations."

"Because that's what the Cybermen and the Daleks did a few years back, right?" Booth asked her.

"I don't deny that there are aliens, Booth." Brennan allowed. "But that of itself is not sufficient to give credibility to all of Hodgins' conspiracy theories."

"Hold your horses!" Camille interrupted. "I said the DNA wasn't human. I _didn't _say it wasn't from Earth. Look, all life forms on Earth share some of their DNA, right? The percentage difference between a human and a dinosaur isn't all that great, mathematically.

"Well, our victims' DNA is different enough to mark them out as not being the same species as us, but not so different as to make them aliens."

"How do you know?" Hodgins was obstinate. "If they seeded life on this planet, wouldn't they have used their own DNA as a starting point?"

"In 2003," Brennan began, acting as if Hodgins had never spoken, "skeletal remains were discovered on the island of Flores in Indonesia. They were of a previously unknown species of hominid, small-boned and under four feet tall. They have been designated _Homo floresiensis_, but there is still debate about whether they constitute a new species or not.

"It is possible our victims are in some way related to this species."

"I heard of that!" Angela said. "Some of the scientists were calling them 'Hobbits', like in _Lord of the Rings_."

"I am not familiar with that work." Brennan admitted. "But Booth does have the DVDs of the movies. The Hobbits depicted in the movie do not resemble _Homo floresiensis_ except in height. The skeletons we have here do share some traits in common with the archaeological specimens, except that the crania are much more developed.

"Angela has attempted to reconstruct a face from the less-damaged of the two skulls."

Angels looked less than comfortable as she fiddled with her tablet.

"My software is configured for human faces, so I had to make some adjustments. It won't be a hundred percent accurate."

Accurate or not, the face was unusual. It was more or less round, completely hairless - "There were no hair traces on the bodies." Angela explained – with a wide mouth and oversized, bulging eyes.

Everyone was quiet for a moment, then Hodgins said. "Damn! That's not right! The cranium should be bigger and the face smaller. And the eyes should be all black."

Angela sighed. "This isn't a Grey, honey. Sorry."

"Oh, well." Hodgins shrugged. "It doesn't matter, anyway. The men in black suits'll be along soon to take the evidence and wipe all our memories."

"Not men," said a new voice, a soft alto, from behind them, "and the store told me this suit was charcoal grey."

They all turned as one. The newcomer was a woman, slightly over the middle height, with a curvaceous figure, a strong-boned, attractive face and a mane of thick, wavy brunette hair.

Booth got to his feet. "Agent Halliwell!" He said. "What are you doing here? Everyone, this is Agent Piper Halliwell from the Justice Department. We met at a conference last year."

"Hello again, Agent Booth." Piper shook his hand, then gave a grimace. "This is a little awkward, Agent Booth. I'm afraid I was less than honest with you when we met, but there were good reasons. I don't actually work for the Justice Department. Here's my real badge."

The wallet looked standard enough, except Booth didn't recognise the leather it was made from. The silver badge inside, though, was not the familiar shield shape. It was a circle with a five-pointed star inside it. Booth read the writing etched around the circle, then checked the ID card opposite. It bore the same logo and a photograph of Piper that Booth could swear gave him a grin and a friendly wink He looked up.

"United States Federal Bureau of Sorcery?" He asked, frankly disbelieving.

"That's us." Piper confirmed. "Used to be the North American Federal Bureau of Sorcery, but Canada decided to set up their own Ministry of Magic in the '90's.

"Just so we're clear, the FBS is the agency that governs, regulates and enforces the law for the magical community in the US."

Even Hodgins had nothing to say until Brennan stood up and said firmly. "Nonsense. There is no such thing as magic. How did you get past Security?"

"Disillusionment Charm for the staff, Opening Spell on the doors." Piper told her. "I was told to expect scepticism from you, Dr Brennan. Might I remind you that before 2008, you would have said with equal conviction that there were no such things as hostile alien robots?"

"I wouldn't have." Hodgins managed past a jaw that appeared terminally dropped.

Piper ignored him, focusing on Booth. "We don't have time to waste convincing people. Agent Booth, take this card, go into your office and phone that number. Do it now."

Booth took the card, looked at it, blinked, swallowed hard and headed off without another word. A few moments later, they heard his raised voice from the office. He seemed to be expostulating, but they couldn't make out the words.

Nobody else seemed to know what to do. Brennan was still glaring at Piper as if the womans' very existence offended her. Hodgins fidgeted, and Angela jabbed him in the ribs, knowing full well that he was itching to ask Piper to do some magic. Sweets, who had been sitting quietly in a corner throughout the meeting, was now watching everyone narrowly.

Finally, Piper moved closer to the large screen, studying the image on it. She turned to Angela. "Your reputation is well deserved, Ms Montenegro. Given the poor materials you had and the fact that your database has no information on House-elves, that's a remarkable first attempt."

"What did I miss?" Angela was curious in spite of herself.

Piper shrugged. "You've made the ears human-shaped and too small. They're shaped more like elephant ears and are much larger. Also you've given her a snub nose when it should be long and pointed.

"Don't look so downcast, you couldn't have known."

At that point, Booth came back into the room. "Well, it looks like we're gonna have to work with you." He told Piper sourly. He turned to the rest of the team. "We're to co-operate with Agent Halliwell and her people fully. This comes right from the top. I've just had a kinda difficult conversation with Colonel Steve Rogers!"

"_The_ Steve Rogers?" Hodgins looked like he was about to explode. "The Director of SHIELD?"

"The same." Booth allowed himself a wry grin to Brennan. "At least we'll be able to tell Christine that her Dad once got reamed out by Captain America!"

"That's hardly calculated to show Christine her father in a creditable light." Brennan opined. "But surely SHIELD does not give credence to this _magic_?"

"The FBS works quite closely with SHIELD, we have done for the last four years." Piper told them.

"I think, everyone," Sweets put in, speaking for the first time, "that we ought to bear in mind that Colonel Rogers has seen a great deal more than any of us. Questions of seniority aside, his experience alone should persuade us to take this seriously."

"OK, OK!" Camille took charge. "If we have to work with you, Agent Halliwell, then we have to. But if I see one piece of evidence of a con job, I'll bounce you out of here personally!"

"How sweet of you." Piper replied dryly. "But you won't be working with me. As Dr Hodgins had already surmised, this matter originated in England, so we've brought over some consultants from their Ministry of Magic, you'll be working with them." She went went to the door and two more people came in at her call.

A woman and a man, standing close together and holding hands in a manner that spoke of a long and close relationship. The woman was about 5' 4", slender and small-boned, with a moderately pretty face and a wealth of brunette hair neatly done into a French plait. She wore low-heeled, sturdy shoes, dark slacks and a white blouse under a tan raincoat. As Booth met her brown eyes, he saw a ferocious intelligence that he instinctively knew was equal to Brennans'.

The man was at least a foot taller, and powerfully-built. He had a sharp-featured face with a long nose, a full mouth that seemed to be perpetually grinning and a pair of penetrating, steady blue eyes, all topped with a thick mop of flame-red hair. He was wearing sneakers, jeans, a white T-shirt and a brown leather jacket, under which Booth's practised eye caught the outline of a shoulder holster.

Piper was speaking again. "This is Mrs Hermione Jean Granger Weasley, probably the worlds' foremost expert on House-elves. What she doesn't know about their biology, habits, history, lifestyle and culture isn't, so I'm told, worth knowing. She should be able to provide useful insights.

"She's accompanied by her husband, Senior Auror Ronald Bilius Weasley. Aurors are wizards employed in law enforcement, and Mr Weasley carries the rank of Detective Inspector in the London Metropolitan Police. He is also an Authorised Firearms Officer in the same force. He is here to officially represent the Ministry of Magic.

"Now I've taken up quite enough of your time, so I'll leave you to your work. Ron has my number if you need to reach me."

With that, she turned and left the room. For a long while, nobody said anything, then Hodgins ventured:

"Well, you don't _look _like a witch and wizard!"

Hermiones' grin had the effect of transforming her face from pretty to something on the cusp of beauty. "What were you expecting?" Her voice was low-pitched and sweet. "Pointy hats and black robes? I threw the hat out when I finished school, but I do have a little black dress at home!"

"Don't we all?" Angela murmured.

"As for robes," Ron said airily, "my Dad wears 'em all the time, but I can't be doing with them. Keep falling over the bloody things!"

"Well," Camille said, forestalling Hodgins' next question. "We'd better brief you in!"

That took only a little while – the two English consultants grasped everything with the rapidity of a pair of powerful minds.

"Right!" Said Hermione firmly. Booth noticed that her voice had changed, rising in pitch and becoming a little strident. "The House-elves were definitely from England. Dr Hodgins found evidence that the towels are British, and all the stuff on them came from a British household, but the towels themselves are the real proof."

"How can that be?" Brennan asked. So far she had avoided speaking directly to either Ron or Hermione, but this flat assertion was too much for her.

Hermione turned to her and explained. "Wearing towels or pillowslips for clothing is the mark of a bound or enslaved House-elf. It's been illegal to keep bound elves in America since your Civil War, and the towels and the trace on them are definitely English."

"Hold on a minute!" Angela was shocked. "You mean they were _slaves_?"

Hermione grimaced and sighed. "So much depends on what you mean by slave, I suppose. Look, when I first found out about House-elves, I was a teenager from a liberal upper-middle-class background. I was shocked and appalled and all the rest of it." She sighed again. "I was like 14 or 15, so wet behind the ears it was a wonder I hadn't drowned myself, and I'd found a mission! I tried to start an organisation – the Society for the Protection of Elvish Workers, I called it. Everybody laughed at me, I thought they were all being horrible fascists until my darling Ron – only about three years later – kindly pointed out to me that the acronym was SPEW! I was all on fire to liberate these poor oppressed creatures any way I could. In short, I made a complete fool of myself!

"Then after I left school and came to work for the Ministry, I wanted to do it again, but properly. This time, Ron bullied me into doing some research before I went off at half-cock. I found out that, at best, twenty per cent of House-elves actually wanted to be free. Only those that were bound to families that abused or mistreated them.

"You see, House-elf culture is centred round an ideal of selfless, loyal service as its own reward. Nothing makes a House-elf happier than seeing a job well done and being thanked or praised for it. You can make a House-elf adore you for life just by giving them a simple gift as a mark of their service.

"But if you set them free, they see it as a disgrace. They blame themselves, their work must have been bad, they must have been bad. It invariably leads to depression, and can escalate to alcoholism, drug addiction or even suicide. Only those who have served a thankless, abusive master for a very long time see freedom as a meaningful alternative. Even then, they're so keen to work that they'll happily let themselves be exploited.

"So in the end, all I could do was change the law so that an elf who wants to be freed has to be, and to outlaw abuse and impose a duty of care on the masters."

Ron cleared his throat loudly, and Hermione gave him a grin. "I'm going on again, aren't I, darling?

"Well, to come to the point, there must have been an English wizard in that alley, and he must have been the master of at least one of these elves, because only his master could have ordered the elf to stay still and be shot that way!

"That offence alone is worth a life-sentence in Azkaban Prison."

"Right!" Ron spoke up. "But there was also an American wizard." He held up the stick that had been found in the alley. "Aurors have to do a course in basic wandlore, and I've been looking at this one. It's an American wand, has to be because British Wand Regulations stipulate that no wand can be more than thirteen inches long, except under exceptional circumstances, in which case the wand must be magically tagged, which this one isn't. It's also a quarter of an inch thicker than UK regulations allow.

"This is sixteen inches, springy, hickory wood with, unless I'm very much mistaken, a Sasquatch hair core. Which means it was made in the North – the South runs to magnolia or cottonwood, sequoia sometimes, and they don't use Sasquatch hair.

"Which means this wand was made in either Chicago or Seattle. Those are the only two places up here with a professional wand-maker, and this is a professionally-made wand. The maker will know who he or she sold it to, but they'll have to see or handle it first. I'll talk to Piper.

"But right now..."

He set the hickory wand on a table, took out a smaller one from his own pocket, and intoned "_Prior Incantatem_!"

The wand on the table shifted a little, then a ghostly red beam shot from one end of it. A few seconds later, a faint image of a silvery disc sprang from the same end.

"A Stun Hex, and a Shield Charm before that." Hermione noted.

Ron nodded. "No earlier than ten last night, no later than midnight."

Hermione looked at him. "I'm going to have to go to the scene, aren't I?"

Ron nodded. "'Fraid so, pet. You've got more grasp of that Third Eye stuff than I do. With Dr Brennans' permission, I'll have a look at the victims. I know more about guns than you do, and since they were shot, I'm more suited to that bit."

"_Knew _Harry should've come!" Hermione muttered, then turned to Booth. "Agent Booth, would you be so kind as to take me to the crime scene?"


	2. Chapter 2

**The Elves in the Alley**

**Part Two: Orientation**

It was mid-afternoon, but the traffic was still heavy. Booth drove in silence for an entire five minutes before Hermione said without preamble.

"We make you uncomfortable, Ron and I, don't we? Dr Hodgins is thrilled with us, Ms Montenegro is curious, Dr Saroyan is suspicious, Dr Sweets isn't giving anything away and Dr Brennan is outraged. But you're just uncomfortable. Not with the idea of magic _per se_, but with the people who practise it."

Booth sighed. The woman was right. She was as clever as Bones but not nearly so obtuse about people. "I'm a Catholic." He told her.

"Ah!" She smiled. "_Maleficios non partieris vivere_ – thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, right?"

"It's not that, not really." He replied awkwardly. "I've met Wiccans before. But my upbringing..."

"You had it drilled into you that magic is evil?" Hermione arched an eyebrow. "Happens all the time with Muggles – that's what we call non-magical people – it's one of the Abrahamic gods' more bloodthirsty eccentricities.

"And by the way, we're not Wiccans, either. We don't dance naked in the moonlight. Well, Ron and I did once, but that was on our honeymoon, so I don't think it counts."

"You don't believe in God?" It was only half a question.

"If you mean the crotchety old gentleman with the obsession about peoples' sex lives, then no." Hermione told him. "Nor am I happy with the amorphous, incomprehensible cosmic entity who created the Multiverse for reasons unknown and seems quite happy to let everything go to Hell in a handcart without lifting a metaphorical finger.

"That apart, I'm a very ordinary person. I get up in the morning, get the kids and husband sorted out, and go to the office. Mind, I only do three days a week now, it saves on the child-minder. I mean, the grandparents would have the kids every day, gladly, but they do spoil them so!"

"You work in an office?" Booth didn't mean to sound surprised, but it came out that way. Hermione gave a gurgle of laughter.

"Why, what did you think, Agent Booth? That I stood in a cave all day, cackling over a cauldron? The last time I used my cauldron – it's my old school one, actually – was at the end of January. I made some Pepper-up Potion because we all had the sniffles. I'm a civil servant, and I work in a perfectly ordinary, slightly old-fashioned, office at the Ministry of Magic in London. I do occasionally get fits of the giggles, though."

By this time, they had arrived at the crime scene, which was still taped off. Booth had a few words with the CSIs, who had retrieved what looked like some 9mm bullets and shell-casings and were about to leave the scene anyway.

He led Hermione past the tape to where the bodies had been found. The scorch marks were still on the ground. He saw her shudder.

"You gonna be OK?" He asked.

Hermione took a deep breath and nodded. "It's funny. In my teens there was a civil war in wizarding Britain. Ron and I, with our friend Harry, were right in the middle of it. Lots of fights and one really nasty battle at the end. You'd think I'd have got used to it, but I haven't. That's why I could never be an Auror."

"Anything I can do to help?" He asked.

"If you could just make sure nobody interrupts until I've finished, that would be great."

Booth nodded and went off to stand guard at the tape barrier. Hermione readied herself as best she could. The Sight was not used much in British magic, except by professional Seers who did little else. It was one of two techniques the American wizard Harry Dresden had taught to Harry Potter to pass on to British Aurors. But as well as that, Harry had passed them on to the select group of friends - Ron, Hermione, Luna, Neville, Ernie, the Patils and a few others – who still called themselves 'Dumbledores' Army' in memory of Harrys' mentor. Hermiones' Sight had proved clear and accurate, whereas Rons' was less so. That was balanced by the fact that Hermione had difficulty using the other technique – the Soulgaze – which Ron had mastered easily.

Now Hermione emptied her mind and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she opened her Third Eye as well. Ordinary vision is restricted to the surfaces of things, not so the Sight. The walls of the houses thrummed with echoes of the lives that had been lived and were being lived within them. The ground beneath her vibrated with the footsteps of everyone who had ever walked or run there. She could sense Booth, further up the alley, his glow of bright strength so much like Rons' but older, more controlled. There had been gunfire - two shots toward a fire-escape, then a single one, later, in the middle of the alley.

Hermione pushed her Sight further. There had been magic here, and magic left traces. Two, no, three wizards. A woman whose aura was maddeningly familiar and two men, one she did not know and another she faintly recognised. There was also the echo of a Muggle, a man of great strength but touched with darkness. There had been Apparations, at least four, and one Disapparition.

"Stupefy," she murmured, "protego twice, impedimenta, stupefy, expelliarmus three times, incendio twice and..and...What _is _that?"

It was green-black, slimy, vile with decay, hanging in the air like a venomous miasma. A curse she had never seen or heard of.

She took a step closer and was promptly choking on the fear, sorrow and pain of a betrayed and murdered House-elf. It barred her way, stopping her Seeing what she needed to See, and now she knew why the poor creature had been murdered.

Hermione rarely swore, it was something Ron used to tease her about, but now she stepped back against the wall with several muttered obscenities, before closing her eyes and releasing the Sight.

After a moment, she made her way back to where Booth was waiting. He looked at her, worry and relief in his face. "All done?" He asked. "Back to the Jeffersonian?

She nodded, then said; "But if you don't mind, d'you know of anywhere on the way where I could get a cup of tea?"

Brennan was having difficulty. Weasley was, on the face if it, a pleasant, amiable sort of man. He certainly examined the two skeletons and the crime scene photos with a detached and thorough professionalism. But his very existence, if his claims were true, offended her.

She was a rational person, a scientist. She could accept that there were aliens, intelligent beings from other planets, more advanced technologically. Brennan had always privately accepted the statistical likelihood of life on other planets, though she had never openly admitted it – Hodgins would never have stopped crowing if she had. She had been disappointed to find these advanced aliens to be so unremittingly warlike – she had hoped they would have evolved beyond that. The same applied to the Mutants and meta-humans, the so-called 'superheroes' and their villainous counterparts. The evidence was there, after all, along with proper explanations for their abilities.

Magic, however, was something different. Magic, Brennan knew as an anthropologist, was, along with religion, a way for primitive peoples to explain and manipulate the world around them. It was something ancient peoples had had in place of science and technology. Chanting words, waving sticks, drawing circles, all nothing but ways to make people feel better, or to gain influence over them. Brennan was infuriated by the fact that an organisation such as SHIELD was prepared to give credence to these peoples' claims.

By this time, Weasley was standing in the middle of the room, looking from the skeletons to the photos and rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"You have read our report, Mr Weasley. I am not sure why you felt it necessary to examine the evidence yourself." She tried to keep the hostility out of her voice, and didn't entirely succeed.

He replied without turning. "It's a very thorough report, as far as it goes, Ms Brennan. But you couldn't have known all the pertinent facts, of course. That's why we're here."

"It's _Doctor_ Brennan!" She told him sharply.

This time, he did turn toward her. "I know." He said. "And I'm _Inspector_ Weasley, or Detective Inspector Weasley, or DI Weasley. While we're about it, my wife is not Ms Weasley, or Ms Granger, or Ms Granger-Weasley. She's _Mrs _Weasley – she has the ring and the certificate to prove it. We still believe in marriage in my world, enough to be old-fashioned about it.

"Now, _Dr_ Brennan, Dr Sweets tipped me the wink that you're a little short on manners -'social niceties', he called them – and that your people let it go because you're the best at what you do and you're so brilliant.

"Now I speak as I find, and I find that you're just bloody rude and your mates make excuses for you. 'Mione used to be like that - all brains and gob and no manners – I don't put up with it from her, and I'll not put up with it from you.

"Manners cost nothing, Dr Brennan. You're clever enough to know what's polite and what isn't, and if you don't mind your p's and q's, you and I are going to fall out."

For the first time in years, Brennan felt abashed. There was no threat about the man. He hadn't been lecturing or even really scolding her. But he meant every word. His body language expressed nothing but perfect confidence, his eyes on hers had been unwavering, but not unkind, and his voice was the same, a slow, rich baritone with a pleasant burr she recognised.

"You come from the South-West of England, don't you?" She ventured.

"Devon." He told her. "Near Ottery St Catchpole - you'll not have head of it."

She nodded. "That explains your size and build, and your patience. Farming stock."

He laughed. "Wizard stock." He replied. "Pureblood, on both sides, as far back as records go. Not saying we never farmed, mind, but my Dad's a civil servant and my Mum is what you lot call a 'home-maker' - 'housewife' in the Queens' English."

Brennan shook her head - the man had Booths' talent for trapping her in irrelevance. "What information do we lack, Inspector Weasley?" She asked.

"You didn't know about magic." He told her, going back to his examination of the evidence. "Now we want to build up a sequence of events about what happened in that alley. 'Mione's going to use the Sight to check for magical traces there, see what spells and hexes were cast. Meanwhile I do my copper thing with the rest, and when we compare notes, we should be able to put things together.

"Now we do know that _incendio_ was cast on the bodies. By your evidence, the fires were too short, too localised and too fierce to be anything else. Especially since they went out instantly as soon as the caster knew they'd been noticed.

"But neither of these House-elves was killed by magic. They were both shot, and I'm just trying to sort the ins and outs of that. Watch closely, Dr Brennan!"

He produced his wand again and said: "_Mortuis revelis_!"

Immediately, lines appeared around the skeletons. Thin, grey, straight lines that passed through the bodies, circled by angry red splashes when they crossed the lines where skin should have been.

"This is a forensic charm." Weasley explained. "It tells us what the cause of death was. If it was a spell or a curse, there'd be an aura round the body and we could identify the curse from the colour of it. Since this was a Muggle weapon, we get something different. In this case, the grey lines show the bullet tracks.

"Now look here!"

Fascinated despite herself, Brennan moved closer. The skeleton Weasley was indicating was the one she had confirmed was shot through the body. Now she saw two grey lines, close together, both entering at the lower chest and exiting near the left shoulder-blade.

"Shot from below." She confirmed. "This body was found huddled by the wall of the alley just under a fire-escape."

"Landing about ten feet up?" Weasley asked, looking at the pictures. "Well that tells us something. Look at the tracks – two, closely grouped and near parallel. Means the second shot was fired before the victim had a chance to react to the first one.

"Whoever shot her was trained – military or police – and surprised. She must have Apparated onto the fire-escape and the shooter reacted on instinct. Double-tap to the centre of body-mass is the classic technique for a fast take-down."

"How did you know she was female?" Brennan asked. "The report only identifies them as Victim A and Victim B."

Ron sighed. "Pelvis, jawbone, gracile bones. Same way you would, Dr Brennan. I may not be a forensic anthro-whatchamacallit, but I'm not an idiot, and despite what 'Mione might tell you, I have done a bit of reading now and then!"

"I apologise." She actually meant it. "I will try not to underestimate you in future."

"S'OK." He shrugged, the turned to the other skeleton. "This is the weird one. Your report says an 'execution-style' shooting, but that's not really true. See how the track goes from nearly the crown of the head and exits through the mouth? If the bullet had gone the other way, I'd have said classic 'gun in the mouth' suicide.

"Look, I read some studies on the 'ethnic cleansing' massacres in Eastern Europe and the Nazi Death Camps and stuff. Reason being, we came close to having that kind of regime in our world in the '90's. Now when somebody is executed with a pistol, what tends to happen is that they're made to kneel and bend their head forward, and they get shot at the base of the skull. That breaks the spinal chord, destroys the brainstem and usually exits through the frontal lobes. Pretty much a certain kill, and if the gun's big enough, outright decapitation.

"But whoever shot this poor little beggar made him kneel with his head up and fired virtually at the top of it. Not that clever, because people have survived with all sorts of things shoved through their brains at all kinds of angles. Some of them were conscious all the time and not even in pain. Hence the neck-shot technique."

"So he was not shot by the same person as the female, even if it was with the same gun?" Brennan put in.

"That's about the size of it." Weasley allowed. "The first shooter was a pro – he'd have known the right technique. Whoever did this not only wasn't a professional, but I don't think they knew much about guns at all!

"In fact, I'd bet a good chunk of dosh that this was done by a wizard!"

Brennan frowned. "How can you infer that?"

"Well," Weasley said, "'Mione already told us that only his master could have ordered the House-elf to stay still and be shot. They can Disapparate – teleport - in the blink of an eye, so they can't be physically restrained easily. The other shooter would have done the job properly, as I've said.

"But a lot of British wizards – Purebloods, mostly – don't understand how guns work. They think it's a machine that produces something like a Killing Curse, and you just need to point it and set it off. They don't even realise that there's a physical projectile involved. Whoever did this probably thought that as long as the House-elf was in front of the muzzle, he'd die when it went off. Still and all, he'd have to be no more than an inch or so away from the victim, or the recoil – which is something else he'd not know about – would've made him miss completely!"

At this point the grey lines faded away, Ron nodded thoughtfully and said. "Now we need to wait until Hermione can tell us what she's Seen."

Brennan put out a hand. "Show me that device." She demanded.

Weasley raised an eyebrow. "Beg pardon?" He said quietly.

Brennan took a breath, then. "Inspector Weasley, may I examine your...wand? Please."

"No probs." He handed it to her.

It was about a foot long, had a slight curve, and was made of wood. There were no buttons, switches, USB ports or other signs that it was anything more than a piece of wood. No signs of a battery compartment and too light to contain any metal. She looked up at Weasley, who was watching her with a faint smile.

"Twelve and three-quarter inches, unyielding, walnut with dragon heartstring core." He told her. "Made by Ollivander of Diagon Alley, London. It was originally bought by a girl called Bellatrix Black, who married a man called Lestrange. Bellatrix Lestrange was one of the most feared and powerful Dark witches of the last century. She was a firm adherent and the intimate associate – by which I mean mistress - of the late Tom Riddle, alias Lord Voldemort, a charismatic psychopath who attempted a _coup d'etat_ in the British Ministry of Magic in the late '90s.

"I was a teenager at the time, and happened to be best mates with the one wizard Voldemort was afraid of – another teenager called Harry – because of a prophecy. We went on the run, there was a lot of dashing about and at one point, I stunned Bellatrix and we got her wand. Hermione used it for a bit, but didn't like it, and it didn't like her, so she was going to chuck it. I tried it, out of curiosity, and not only did it work for me, but it was better than the chestnut one I'd been using, so I took it. Mr Ollivander told me after that the wand went over to me because I defeated Bellatrix that time and later my Mum killed her. It sort of had to go to a Weasley then!"

Brennan shook her head angrily. "This is just a stick!" She snapped. "What do you do, use it to distract people while you use some advanced technology hidden on your person? Or are you some kind of Mutant? There has to be a scientific explanation for what you can do!"

"Oh, you're dead right about that!" Weasley told her, retrieving his wand. "There has to be, there is, but we just haven't found it yet. Wizards haven't looked, and we've kept ourselves so secret from Muggles – non-magical people – for so long, _they've_ never had a chance to.

"Oh, don't look so surprised, Dr Brennan! I think most ordinary wizards, especially Halfblooded and Muggle-born, agree that there has to be a scientific explanation for magic. There's only a few, very old-line conservative Purebloods who still believe it's a gift from some set of gods or other!

"The problem is that we're still secret from ninety percent of Muggles, and the White Council want it to stay that way as long as possible. Also, they don't want Muggle scientists poking around too much."

"Because they are afraid a way might be found to counteract your powers?" Brennan was intrigued. "To make you vulnerable?"

"Not so much that." Weasley allowed. "There are only about half a billion wizards world-wide, and not many of them combat trained. Against that there are seven billion heavily-armed, technologically advanced and aggressive Muggles. In a war, you'd walk all over us, and the Council know it.

"No, they're just worried that Muggle scientists would find a way to produce wizards artificially by meddling with peoples' genes. There's a balance to these things, and if Earth started suddenly producing more and more wizards, certain parties might take an unhealthy interest."

"Certain parties?" Brennan asked.

He held up a hand. "It's complicated. There's a lot of quantum and what Harry would call 'timey-wimey stuff' involved. 'Mione could explain it to you better than me, if she's allowed to." He turned to the door. "Speak of the Devil...Hi, pet!"

Hermione came into the room, set the cup she was carrying down on the nearest flat surface, and walked straight into her husbands' arms. He showed neither surprise nor embarrassment, just wrapped his brawny arms round her.

Brennan looked over at Booth, who had followed the Englishwoman into the room, a question in her face. He took her quietly to one side and said softly.

"Whoever or whatever Hermione is, she's not a field person. She did..._something_...in that alley and it let her see things that shook her more than she'll admit."

Just then, Hermione stepped back from Ron. "That's better!" She said. "Now I just need one more thing." She picked up the cup. "This," she told them, "is a warmish, brown liquid which is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. If we were back in the UK, I'd be making a complaint under the Trades Description Act. As it is..." She tapped the cup with her wand. It shimmered slightly, then she took a sip, closed her eyes, sighed and gave a beatific smile. "Ahhh...PG Tips!

"Right, if you don't mind, Dr Brennan, Agent Booth, Ron and I have a bit of work to do."

It was a couple of hours later when Ron and Hermione gathered everyone together in one of the less-used labs. Somehow – nobody quite wanted to ask how – all the equipment and furniture had been cleared away. Two broad, parallel white lines had been marked on the floor. At one point, a pole about ten feet high had been set upright on one of the lines.

"Right!" Ron announced. "Role-playing time, everyone!" He indicated the lines on the floor. "Alley." He pointed to the pole "Fire escape landing on top of that.

"Right, we have one English witch, that's you 'Mione. One American wizard - Dr Sweets, if you please? And one American Muggle with military training, which would be you, Agent Booth. If you'll all stand just here, Agent Booth in the middle...Excellent!"

The three moved into position, Hermione chuckling. "I love it when you get all bossy, darling!"

"Hold that thought, pet." Ron grinned, then got serious again. "Right, now you've all three just Apparated into this alley. I'm not going to try and explain Apparation 'cos I don't really understand it all myself. But, Agent Booth, the chances are you've never done it before, and Side-along Apparition isn't pleasant. You're going to be disoriented, physically shaken, maybe a bit scared and you've been briefed to expect trouble OK?"

Booth nodded. "Got it."

"Cool. Now what happened next is that the female House-elf Apparated onto the fire-escape. Wizards Apparate with all sorts of noises from a little pop to a fairly loud bang, but House-elves always do it with a boom. So, Agent Booth, you hear a Hell of a bang, probably sounds like a weapon going off, and something you've never seen before appears out of nowhere on a vantage point above you. React."

Booth whipped an imaginary gun from a shoulder holster, aimed at the top of the pole and said "Bang, bang!"

Ron nodded. "Double-tap and down she goes! At this point the other wizard – me – Apparates in. I see what's happened and cast a disarming hex, and your gun flies over toward me. Dr Sweets, I then try a stunning hex on you, you use a shield charm then respond with a stun of your own which I block before disarming you. 'Mione, you make a move to cast a spell, but I knock you back with impedimenta and then disarm you as well.

"So far so good, but it gets a little muddy from here on in. What we think happened is that you, Agent Booth, tried to go for me physically, but Dr Sweets got in the way and the curse I cast -one we've never seen before – hit him instead. In the cufuffle, 'Mione, you manage to get your wand back and the three of you back out of the alley, then leg it for parts unknown.

"Now at this point, I should pick up the dead House-elf and get out of here, but I don't know what alarm bells might have gone off at the FBS -you couldn't get away with a magical scrap like that in a major city in the UK without having Aurors all over you in minutes.

"So I want to muddy the waters. I call in the other House-elf, make him kneel where I've been standing, and kill him with the Muggle weapon. Then I use a fire-spell on both bodies. That gets the attention of the locals, and I put out the fires and Disapparate."

Booth frowned. "You make it sound like he wanted to attract attention."

"Oh, he did." Ron stated. "A very specific kind of attention. Look, we just role-played that whole scenario in about five minutes. Now you know and I know that in real life, it would have taken less than half that time. Not long enough for the FBS Aurors to get there – we can't just Apparate all over the place in a Muggle city. Our wizard wanted to make sure the Muggle responders got there either at the same time, or only just after, the wizard ones.

"That would mean that the FBS would have to waste time getting the Muggle investigators pulled off. With all due respect, there's no way Muggles could catch this bloke, and by the time the Aurors got clearance to go in, his trail would be stone-cold."

Booth nodded. "Jurisdictional disputes can be a bitch." He allowed.

"But why," Angela wanted to know, "did he kill the second, er, House-elf?"

"To hide himself." Hermione told her grimly. "Whatever happened between the Muggle and wizard authorities, he knew that a wizard or witch would be using the Sight in that alley. Psychic impressions take a long time to degrade, much longer than physical evidence. But that means they get layers on top of them.

"Our suspect could count on the presence and emotions of the first responders and investigators to blur the impressions a little, but not enough to hide him completely. But certain actions and emotions are so powerful, so loud if you like, that they can create a kind of barrier or smokescreen for the Sight.

"In this case, the cold-blooded murder of an innocent person, devoted to the killer, who knew what was going to happen and could do nothing about it, created such a haze of dark and painful emotions that there's no way I can identify the killers' aura, even if I see him face-to-face. Not only that, but the English witch who was there is somebody I know, or have known, but the barrier stops me identifying her as well."

"The House-elf didn't even try to escape?" Angela was clearly having trouble with that.

"I know. " Hermione sighed. "It's sick, but a House-elf can't disobey their master, even to save their own life. That's part of the original magic that creates the Binding, and the worst thing is that the House-elves created that magic themselves, and only they can undo it! But to do that, every single bound House-elf would have to agree to the change, and so many of them just _won't_!"

"Like the Third Law of Robotics," Hodgins said softly, "robots can protect themselves, but the First and Second Laws override that. Only these aren't machines."

"No," Ron said quietly, "which is why killing a House-elf is just as much murder as killing anyone else."

"Why would an entire race choose slavery?" Angela wondered aloud.

"I don't know." Hermione told her. "We know virtually nothing about the origins and history of House-elves before the Binding. They either won't talk about it, or they've forgotten. I'm researching it, but..."

"We'll get there in the end, pet." Ron put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly. "But right now, we've got other stuff to do!"

"We do." Booth asserted. "We've got four suspects in the wind, for one thing. Ron – OK if I call you that? Right, how do we know that only one of the wizards..er...apparated? Apparated out of there?"

"Because 'Mione didn't sense any other Disapparations." Ron replied.

"We're inferring that it was the American wizard who was injured." Hermione went on. "He didn't retrieve his wand, for one thing. That in itself doesn't mean much, not many American wizards use wands, FBS regulations don't require it, unlike the European Ministries of Magic. But Apparation is different from a lot of other magic; it's very precise, very demanding and you really need a wand to do it safely. Also, most American wizards don't do it much -except for the Whitelighters, who get special training - because they live more among Muggles than European wizards do.

"Now if the local wizard was injured, that would have left the English witch to try to Disapparate carrying another wizard, who couldn't help, and the Muggle. That simply can't be done – well, a strong Whitelighter might be able to, but nobody else I know of – without splinching either yourself or one or both of your passengers."

"They probably got out of the alley and into the street, took off in a random direction for a bit, then nicked a car." Ron said. "The Muggle would know how to drive, the witch might, as well."

"Can you boost a car by magic?" Hodgins wanted to know.

"Well, it's easy enough to get the doors open – _alohomora_ will do that - but getting it started is different." Ron said. "I could do it, because I know how cars work, what all the ignition and sparkplugs and points and things actually do. Muggle technology is sort of a family hobby."

"I couldn't." Hermione said. "Because although I'm Muggle-born, I've only got the vaguest idea of what goes on under the bonnet! I think it's probably safe to say that the Muggle who was with them knows how to..what's the phrase? Hot-wire a car."

"OK." Booth was relieved, here was something he could grasp. "I'll get the PD to check on stolen vehicle reports in the area around our time-frame, check the traffic cams and so on.

"I suppose there's no point checking the hospitals for our injured wizard?"

"None whatever." Hermione told him. "I don't know exactly what that curse would do to someone, but I doubt it's anything you could explain to a Muggle doctor, and one certainly couldn't treat it! I'll get on to Piper to check the wizard hospital and local Healers, but I'm not holding out much hope."

"So our best bet is still the gun." Booth concluded. "They should have something for us about that tomorrow."

"Cool." Ron said. "So why don't we knock off for tonight? Don't know about anyone else but I'm falling through!"

Hermione caught Brennans' eye and rolled her own.

"Eeeesh!" She sighed exaggeratedly. "The man's a bottomless pit!"

"That," Brennan replied, straight-faced, "is a phenomenon with which I am all too familiar!"

As everyone was starting to leave, Dr Saroyan asked: "What's splinching?"

"Apparation accident." Hermione told her. "It's when you leave a bit of yourself behind. It's usually something small like an eyebrow or a fingernail. But sometimes it can be whole leg or arm. That's why people are advised never to Apparate alone. If there's another wizard or witch with you, you can get patched up, or they can take you back and join you up. Of course, if you leave your head behind...!"

Camille shuddered. "Sorry I asked!"

During the general amiable bustle of home-time, Hodgins managed to buttonhole Ron.

"So," he said, "you're a wizard, right? Are you..."

Hermione interrupted. "The answer's _no_ and _yes_, Dr Hodgins!"

To his astonished look, she continued. "You were about to ask if my husband is subtle and quick to anger, right? Well the last Muggle who asked that got thrown through a wall, hence the answer!"

"In my own defence," Ron pointed out, "the plonker was pointing a gun at me when he asked!

"Anyway, Dr Hodgins, how are the conspiracy theories holding up now everybody knows there _are _aliens?"

"Somebody been telling tales out of school?" Hodgins grinned. "Doesn't change a thing. There's still stuff the government isn't telling us – like about you guys, for instance! I know all about the StarGate program, the Warehouse, Sanctuary and that guy with the blue box!"

"Don't diss the bloke with the blue box!" Ron said mock-sternly. "He's a friend of a friend!"

Hodgins eyes widened. "You met him?" He asked.

"No," Hermione told him, "and we don't want to, and neither do you! Harry tells us the Doctor is a very nice person, but if you ever meet him it means you're in more trouble, one way or another, than you could possibly imagine!

"Now, why don't you tell us where there's a nice place to eat that isn't under CIA surveillance?"

Angela, who had been listening in, howled with laughter.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Elves in the Alley**

**Part Three: A Squib Among the Squints**

Booth caught up with Ron early the next day.

"OK, we got a tie-in for the gun. It was actually registered to the guy whose prints we found on the clip.

"His name's Ralph Cole. He was a lieutenant in Marine Recon until he got himself dishonourably discharged. I can't find out why, it's still classified, but after that he dropped off the grid for a while. We think he operated as a mercenary.

"He turns up again in around 2000, working for Changeling Security as a 'Team Leader' on permanent contract to the Hellfire Club in New York. In 2009, Changeling was bought out by an outfit called IFIMO Services. They still list Cole as an employee. IFIMO is owned and run by two guys, Cain Marko and Fred Dukes. We're gonna go see them.

"But first you need to come with me!"

Booth took Ron to the FBI building, and down to the firing range.

"I know you're carrying, Ron, and I know you're an authorised shot with Scotland Yard, but we're going to be watching each others' backs out there, and I like to make my own judgements about who I work with. So do you, I'll bet!"

Ron was carrying a standard 9mm Glock, Booth noted, and followed range procedure to the letter. His marksmanship was impressive; quick, accurate and if anything even more closely-grouped than Booths'.

"OK!" Booth allowed. "I'm happy. Where'd you learn to shoot?"

"With the Met at first." Ron told him. "But then after they assessed me, they decided I should go for extra training at Hereford."

"The SAS?" Booth asked.

Ron nodded. "You think my pistol work is good, but you should see me with a rifle!

"Anyway, you've seen my shooting, now let's see your magic!"

Booth gave a wry grimace. "I can make a burger disappear..."

Ron, who had been setting up another target as he spoke, chuckled. "No trick! I can do that every time. This, however..."

He pointed his wand at the target and barked "_Reducto!_" The target promptly disintegrated.

Ron put his wand away and said to Booths' astonished expression. "Now you know what I can do! I don't need you freezing with shock in a tight place, Agent Booth!"

IFIMO Services, according to the posters and flyers scattered around the reception area, provided corporate and personal security, data protection, background checks, remote and on-site surveillance, 'bail bond retrieval' and 'secure-area janitorial services'. The middle-aged and courteous receptionist lost no time in taking Booth and Ron through to a conference room, where the owners of the company were waiting for them.

Ron and Booth were both big men, but they felt dwarfed by the two smartly-dressed men who rose to greet them. Not only were both of them taller than Ron, but Booth doubted that either would tip the scales at less than 300 pounds! Not that either seemed flabby or unfit – they reminded Ron of pictures he had seen of Victorian circus strongmen.

The one with fair hair and a square, strong-jawed face came forward. "Agent Booth, Inspector Weasley, pleased to meet you both. My name's Cain Marko, this is my business partner, Fred Dukes. What can we do for you?"

"We need to ask about one of your employees." Booth said, showing them a file photograph. "His name's Ralph Cole."

Marko and Dukes exchanged a glance. Dukes shook his head. "Aw, crap!" He said. "I knew this would happen! What kind of trouble he get himself into?"

"He may be a material witness in a double shooting." Booth said carefully.

"You mean you think he shot somebody, right?" Marko waved them to chairs. "Sit down, gentlemen, we need to talk."

"You don't seem very surprised." Ron ventured as the four sat down.

Dukes' jowly face stretched in a wry grimace. "English, right?" He said. "You don't know who we are, or who we used to be."

"I do." Booth stated. "I ran a background check. Cain Marko, formerly known as the Juggernaut, and Frederick Dukes, alias the Blob!"

"Ah, geez, did you have to?" Dukes groaned. "I been tryin' to live that moniker down for five years, now!"

He turned to Ron. "I'm a Mutant, Inspector. I used to work with Magneto – Erik Lensherr – back in the day, with the Brotherhood of Mutants. I was a terrorist, I suppose, though back then I figured I didn't have a choice.

"But when the Daleks came, Erik gave us all a straight choice. Join up with everyone else to defend the world, or run and hide. We knew he was right, all except Mystique, so we went out and fought. By the end, there was only Erik and me left."

Ron looked at Marko. "You're a Mutant too?" He asked.

Marko shook his head. "No. My problem was that my stepbrother is Charles Xavier. It's a long story, and it's all in the past now, but back then what happened between us sent me searching for something to make me more powerful than Charles. I found it, and became the Juggernaut. At first it was all about revenge, but after I met up with Black Tom Cassidy it was all about the money.

"We were in LA the day the Daleks came. Tom had gone out to get breakfast and was on his way back when a squad of them came into the street and started herding people. I went to the window when I heard the noise and saw the whole thing. Tom tried to fight them – he was a powerful Mutant, but they just went through him like tissue paper and left him dead in the gutter, my only friend. So I suited up, got out there, did what I could, for Tom, for Earth, for everybody."

He fell silent. After a moment, Dukes carried on.

"After that, we both got Presidential Pardons and invites to join the Avengers. But both of us had had it with that world.

"Well, Changeling Securities was a front for the Hellfire Club to hire mercenaries, but all the Inner Circle had been killed by the Daleks. With Sebastian Shaw gone, and all his little secrets coming out, his empire was falling apart. Cain and I knew each other by reputation, and we both had money, so we became partners and bought this company.

"Ralph and the other employees came with it. Some of them were just psychos, and we got rid of them fast, but Ralph seemed stable at first, didn't he, Cain?"

Marko roused himself. "Yeah. But after a while, he started hankering after the old days. Not so much the money as the shiny high-tech toys, or not knowing what you were going to be up against tomorrow. It was the excitement, the weirdness he missed.

"So anyway, a couple weeks ago, this British dame comes into the office. Calls herself Rosemary Simmons and says she's looking for personal security, a bodyguard. She said she was an investigative journalist and she'd had threats from some people she was looking into."

Ron frowned and took out a notebook. "Sorry to interrupt, Mr Marko. Can you describe her?"

Marko nodded. "White, kind of a heavy face, blonde, painted her nails bright red. Scotland Yard after her, Inspector?"

"Might very well be." Ron replied grimly. "Go on, please."

"OK. Well, we did a background on her, we do that with potential clients; we only take legit contracts. It wouldn't take much for those pardons to vanish and we've both got families now.

"There was nothing, nothing at all, about Rosemary Simmons further back than six months. When I say nothing, I mean zilch, zip, nada! We have a contractor in Sweden who specialises in this kind of thing, and she couldn't find anything. So either this Simmons lady has been off the grid -completely off it – for a lot of years, or her real identity is deep, deep black.

"Either way, we wanted no part of it, so when she came back, we told her it was no go. She was kind of pissed, told us we didn't know who we were dealing with. We told her that was the problem, so she clammed up and stalked out.

"But we saw her speaking to Ralph in the outer office. Next day, Ralph calls in sick. That was ten days ago, and we haven't heard from him since. His cell's switched off, he's not answering emails. I've been to his apartment a couple times, but there's nobody there and the doorman hasn't seen him.

"That's as much as we know, Agent Booth. IFIMO will cooperate fully with your investigation. Karen will give you everything we have on the Simmons woman and a copy of Ralph's employee file on the way out. You got a card? Good, if we hear anything, we'll give you a call."

"One last thing." Booth said as they prepared to leave. "Could this Simmons woman be somebody from the old days?"

It was Dukes who replied. "Only person it might be is Mystique, but the Raven I knew never needed a bodyguard and even if she did, she wouldn't be dumb enough to come to us for one."

Back in the car, Booth said to Ron. "You know this Rosemary Simmons?"

"Not under that name." Ron allowed. "But the description is very close to a witch called Rita Skeeter, who I do know."

"Why would a witch pose as a journalist?" Booth wanted to know.

"Well, Rita actually is a journalist." Ron said. "Witches and wizards have to earn a living, you know! Rita used to work for the _Daily Prophet_, and she had a column in _Witch Weekly_."

"Past tense?" Booth asked.

Ron nodded. "Yeah. Her line wasn't investigative journalism, more gossip and scandal, and she wasn't any too scrupulous. We first met her when we were in our teens. Our friend Harry got involved in something very high-profile and Rita was the official correspondent. She wrote a pack of lies about Harry and Hermione that really upset us all. But then Hermione found out a secret – Rita was doing something against wizard law – that shut her up for a bit. We were even able to blackmail her into doing a proper interview with Harry when we needed to.

"But when our old Headmaster -a really famous wizard – was killed by terrorists, Rita went back to her old tricks. She rushed out a nasty, scurrilous biography that upset a lot of people. But then the war was on, and things got messy, and we forgot about Rita until Voldemort was gone. But then she did no more than dash off a biography of Harry, who was the one who beat Voldemort, that was as twisted as the one of Dumbledore. What she didn't realise was that Harry was raised by Muggles, and unlike a lot of wizards, was quite prepared to take her to court.

"After the Minister of Magic, the Head of Hogwarts and about fifty other people, including the man who'd been Harry's worst enemy all the time we were at school, had all stood up in front of the Wizengamot and testified to the fact that Rita was talking out of her arse, she hadn't a leg to stand on.

"Last I heard, she was living on her savings and touting for secretarial work. If she's decided to get into investigative journalism, and into something dangerous, she's either desperate or she's onto something really big. If it involves Muggles, it could be mega-big!"

"Big enough to kill over." Booth observed. "Well, we need to get a warrant to search Cole's apartment. Then we'd better get back to the Jeffersonian and see if the squints have come up with anything more."

"And," Ron added, "to make sure Hermione and Dr Brennan haven't started fighting yet!"

Booth shrugged. "Worst they could do is overheat their brains trying to out-nerd each other!"

It was then Booths' cell went off. He spoke tersely into it, then started the car.

"There's been another one!" He told Ron.

When Agent Halliwell called to say the wand-maker had arrived from Chicago, the entire ream gathered to meet them. He was about three feet tall, with a long nose, a fluff of white hair around a shiny bald head, half-moon glasses over which he peered benignly, and was wearing a dark suit. He reminded Hermione more than a little of Professor Flitwick.

"This is Mr Barlow, the wand-maker from Chicago." Piper explained. "He should be able to tell us about the wand we found, if it's the one he thinks it is."

Barlow gave there assembled company a short bow, then spoke in a reedy voice. "First, Barlow must shed his disguise, if he is to work properly!"

A shimmer passed over him, and when it had gone, Barlow was revealed as a House-elf. Even his clothes had changed, now consisting of buckled shoes, white stockings, brown knee-britches and long jacket, a white shirt with a mustard-yellow waistcoat and matching cravat. There was a general murmur of surprise.

"Goodness!" Hermione exclaimed. "I've never heard of an elf wand-maker before!"

"Mrs Weasley would not have." Barlow replied. "As far as he knows, Barlow is the only one. Over a hundred and fifty years ago, Barlows' family decided to emigrate to the New World. Before leaving, they freed Barlows' father, but he refused to leave them, and accompanied them as a paid helper. The familys' name was Barlow, and that is the name Barlows' father took for himself.

"Old Mr Barlow was a wand-maker, and old Mrs Barlow was skilled in herblore and potioncraft. They set up an apothecary shop, with a wand workshop above. Alas, young Mr Barlow had no aptitude for wandlore, though like his mother, he is skilled with herbs and potions. But by that time, Barlows' father had married and Barlow had been born. Barlow proved to have the skills for wand-making, so old Mr Barlow trained him as an apprentice, and here he is!"

There was a moments' silence, then Angela murmured. "I'd imagined the ears bigger and the nose longer, I don't know why."

Barlow smiled at her. "Mistress Montenegro is correct in her imagining." He told her. "Barlow must admit to vanity, and he has had a little work done! But perhaps Dr Hodgins would be more comfortable if Barlow began talking about his Precious?"

Hodgins, who had almost unconsciously been making 'gollum' noises in his throat, had the grace to blush and mutter an apology.

Barlow gave a piping laugh. "Dr Hodgins need not worry. Barlow has read Professor Tolkiens' books, and understands why.

"But now may Barlow examine the wand?"

The House-elf peered at the wand, flexed it, hefted it briefly and waved it to send out a shower of silver sparks.

"Yes," he said finally, "Barlow made this wand. Sixteen inches, springy, hickory and Sasquatch hair. Barlow sold this wand twenty-three years ago to a young wizard named Jason Connover. Mr Connover had come all the way from Detroit to Chicago, to buy this wand after he was accepted to the Randolph Carter School for Witches and Wizards.

"Mrs Weasley will know that the wand chooses the wizard. This wand is suited to a wizard who is idealistic but easily swayed by the thought of adventure, especially in a good cause."

As he handed the wand back, Camille remarked. "Mr Barlow, you don't seem bothered by, er, Muggles?"

"No, Dr Saroyan, Barlow is not." He told her. "The family shop serves Muggles as well as wizards. Barlow, like his father before him, often helps in the shop, in disguise. But Muggles can be troublesome. Once, many years ago, the Muggle government made a law against intoxicating drink. But the family continued to sell elf-wine, butterbeer and firewhisky to wizards. By some means, a Muggle named Capone came to hear of this, and sent his men to the shop to take the stock. The family had to send them away. Old Mr Barlow visited Capone, and the trouble ceased. Mr Barlow made an offer Capone could not refuse.

"Now Agent Halliwell has promised that Barlow will be paid for his time, but he has one more favour to ask. Would it be possible for Barlow to examine Mrs Weasleys' wand?"

Hermione looked a little taken aback. "Certainly." She said. "But what for?"

Barlow bowed to her and said. "Barlow knows who Mrs Weasley is. She was once Hermione Granger, one of the Three Heroes. She is the wife of Ronald Weasley, the great battlemage, and the friend of Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, or as he is called in Chicago, 'the other Harry'. It would be an honour for Barlow to examine the wand of such a famous witch!"

"OK, now I'm dreadfully flattered and horribly embarrassed all at the same time!" Hermione said. "Here you go!"

Barlow handled the wand with a kind of reverence. "Ollivander, of course." He said finally. "Ten and a quarter inches, limber, birch and unicorn hair. This is not Mrs Weasleys' first wand?"

Hermione shook her head. "My original one was vine wood and dragon heartstring, but I lost it in the war. I used captured wands for a while, but none of them really suited. So when Ollivanders' opened up again I went and bought that one. I like it, better than my old one, actually."

Barlow nodded and handed the wand back to her. "This is a wand for a witch of very great skill, but only moderate power. Many wizards and witches lost their original wands in that war."

"I know." Hermione agreed. "Out of the three of us, only Harry still has his old one."

Barlows' eyes gleamed. "Yes! The famous holly and phoenix-feather wand of Harry Potter! Barlow would give much to see or touch that wand!

"But now Barlow must return to Chicago. But before he goes..." The elf produced a number of business cards which he handed out to everyone. "The Olde English Apothecary in Chicago is run by Barlows' family, and has a Muggle website – please to visit for many natural remedies and health products!"

With that, he disapparated with a boom that made everyone except Hermione jump!

After a moment, Hodgins said. "Wow!"

Brennan frowned. "He only used the third person in his speech. In a human, that would indicate some form of psychosis, would it not, Dr Sweets?"

It was Hermione who answered. "It's a cultural thing, Dr Brennan. In their own language – which humans can't learn because a lot of it is outside our auditory range – there's no first or second person, no 'I' or 'you'. We think it's because House-elves consider themselves, and everybody else, not as individuals, but as part of something else; a family, an organisation, a culture. It goes a long way towards explaining the way they behave."

"Right!" Piper said. "At least I have something to go on. I'll get back to the office and get some background on this Jason Connover. I'll be in touch."

The group broke up. Dr Sweets asked Hermione to meet him in his office. Once there, he said.

"Right, I'm the psychologist on this team, and one of the things I do is try to profile suspects. Now Booth and your husband, Mrs Weasley, will be able to get me everything I need about this man Cole, but the others are all wizards, so I need your help on those, OK?"

"I'll do what I can." She replied. "But I'm not a psychologist. You can call me Hermione, you know, Ron won't mind!"

He smiled at her. "Lance." He said. "Now, how much of what Mr Barlow said about Jason Connover can we rely on?"

"All of it." She told him. "Wandlore is a difficult and obscure branch of magical knowledge. Anyone can learn the basics – identifying the wood and the core – and Aurors are taught that. But to actually make wands requires a kind of inborn sensitivity to certain vibrations, you either have it or you don't. But if you do, you become aware of all kinds of things. They say the wand chooses the wizard, and certain combinations of wood, core, size and flexibility are drawn to certain kinds of people. Like mine: Barlow was right when he said that I'm a skilled witch – I can do complicated charms and transfigurations easily – but for raw power you need Ron! I can blow a hole in a wall if I have to, but I've seen Ron reduce bricks to powder!

"Aside from that, there are other things I can tell you, based on what we now know. Connover is almost certainly a Half-blood, for instance. Apart from anything else, there are only a couple of Pureblood families left in this country..."

"Three." Sweets murmured. Hermione raised an eyebrow, then carried on.

"We can also assume his parents are traditionalists, and relatively recent immigrants, because he went to a wizard school. Most American wizards are home-schooled in magic. It comes from the frontier days when it wasn't safe to live apart from Muggles and therefore wasn't practical to send the kids away to school. Muggle-born youngsters tend to be assigned a magical mentor, wherever possible. That explains why most American wizards practice wandless magic. Only the schools insist on students having wands, and that's for safety purposes while they're still learning.

"Now there are two schools of magic in the US. One was founded back in the 1600s -the Salem Academy in Massachusetts... No, Lance, that doesn't explain the witch trials! What went on in Muggle Salem was small-town politics, pure and simple.

"Salem Academy is a very small, very select, very old-fashioned place which only takes students from the original thirteen colonies who can trace wizard ancestry back to before the Revolutionary War. Because there are no wand-makers in the States of that vintage, most of the students there get their wands in England.

"But a lot of wizards emigrated to America during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, and some of them were traditionalists who wanted to send their kids to a wizard school. At fi rst there were a lot of little schoold – Dame School kind of thing – but eventually, in the 1930s', a wizard named Etienne-Laurent de Marigny founded a new school, the Randolph Carter School for Witches and Wizards. He named it after a friend of his, a wizard who disappeared in 1928, leaving his fortune for de Marigny to dispose of. The school is in the Miskatonic Valley, about ten miles outside Arkham. It takes students from all over the States and Canada, and even some from Northern Mexico, though most South American wizards attend the Escuela El Dorado in the Andes."

"You know a lot about American wizard history." Sweets remarked.

She grinned at him. "I got an Outstanding in my History of Magic OWL exam. We didn't just do British, we covered most of the world. As I recall, America only took a couple of lessons - you don't have a lot of history, you know!"

Sweets laughed out loud, which was what Hermione wanted – she'd learned more than a few things from Ron!

She put her head on one side and said quietly. "Lance, you're a Squib, aren't you?"

He stared at her. "How...?"

Hermione shrugged. "It's my Sight. It's sort of like sonar. When I open my Third Eye, it's like active pinging, but the rest of the time, it's like passive sonar, just listening. I wasn't sure before, but your reaction to Ron and I was a little...off. Now I've had a chance to see you alone, without all the others about, I can feel it in your aura. Then, of course, you knew the exact number of Pureblood families left in the US!"

Sweets cleared his throat. "Look, as far as anyone else knows, my birth-mother was...is...a psychic working in a circus. The fact is, she's a witch, and my father was a wizard – he died.

"There are only three Pureblood families left in the States. There's one family who live in a spooky old mansion on a bayou in Louisiana. None of them ever leave it except to go to Europe to find Pureblood wives or husbands. The other two are carny families -it's a very insular community.

"My mother _is_ a psychic, though, she has the full Sight. She knew as soon as I was born that I was a Squib. At first, she hid it from my father, but she was so ashamed, eventually she broke down and admitted it..."

He was having difficulty carrying on, and Hermione suddenly realised why.

"Oh, Hell!" She said softly. "They abused you, didn't they? Oh, Lance, I am so sorry! I should've left this to Ron, he's so much better with people than I am!"

He shook his head. "It's OK, Hermione, you weren't to know. They were proud people, and I was a disgrace to their bloodline. I was taken away when I was six, and put into the system, but that didn't work out so well. Then the FBS got involved, and I was adopted by a wonderful couple – both Squibs themselves - they're the ones I think of as my parents.

"When I went looking for my birth-parents a few years ago, it was the FBS who clued me in. They told me I mustn't tell anyone. I'd prefer it if you kept this between ourselves, Hermione."

"Of course." She promised.

Then, with only the most perfunctory of knocks, Dr Saroyan came in. "We have another murder." She said.

"This is not usual for me." Brennan remarked as she weaved through the traffic. "Normally, I go to crime scenes with Booth, and he insists upon driving. I suppose it is the same with you and your husband?"

"Depends." Hermione said. "We each have our own car, so who drives depends on which car we're using at the time. Ron's about a foot taller than me, so it would take forever to adjust all the seats and mirrors!"

Brennan nodded. "Your husband is an..unusual man. Not because he is a wizard – which I do not accept as an explanation for his odd abilities – but because of his character. Like myself, you have chosen a genetically-superior Alpha male as your mate, but Inspector Weasley has demonstrated a level of intellectual attainment I did not expect from a man of his type."

Hermione laughed. "You don't have to tell me that! We met when we were eleven, and I spent at least three years thinking Ron was as thick as two short planks and being driven mad by the fact that I couldn't beat him at chess!

"Then, of course, I admitted the truth. Ron is every bit as intelligent as you or I, Dr Brennan, he's just not an academic. He's ranked third in the Wizard Chess Amateur World League, for instance. He understands people in a way I never will and he can analyse a tactical situation at a glance. Before he became an Auror, he was a director in his brothers' business, and turned it into one of the wizard worlds' most successful ventures. But ask him to take an exam...!

"Oh, and by the way, I didn't marry Ron because of his genetic superiority. I married him because I love him!"

Brennan gave a small frown. "Agent Halliwell provided us with dossiers on yourself and your husband. From your record, I would have assumed we would have more in common. But you seem less rational-minded than I would have expected. You were, once. What happened?"

"I grew up." Hermione said simply. "But we do have something in common, Dr Brennan. We're related."

"Related?" Brennan was surprised. "How do you know that?"

"My husband is a Pureblood wizard." Hermione explained. "Like all Purebloods, the Weasleys know their family tree backwards, forwards and sideways. But like a lot of Muggles, my family had only the most basic idea about theirs. So I did some research.

"My mother's maiden name was Reeder, her great-grandfather was a John G Reeder, who was a detective working for the Public Prosecutor. John Reeder was the grandson of a Yorkshire squire called Sherrinford Holmes. Sherrinford had a sister, Sigrina, who was a noted Egyptologist and early campaigner for womens' rights. She married an American named Grissom, and they had three sons and two daughters. You're descended from one of those daughters."

"How remarkable!" Brennan said. "I will have to confirm this."

"I'll show you the research." Hermione promised. "But it gets better. Sherrinford and Sigrina had two other brothers. Their names were Mycroft and Sherlock!"

They had arrived at the scene, and Brennan parked the car. But instead of getting out at once, she turned in her seat to stare at Hermione.

"Do you mean...?" She asked, incredulous.

Hermione gave a peal of delighted laughter. "Yes, Cousin Temperance! Not only are we related to each other, we're both related to Sherlock Holmes!"

Hermiones' revelation was rapidly set aside as the two women entered the apartment. The FBS had kept the Muggle authorities away, so the scene was pristine. Brennan noted with approval that Hermione slipped on a pair of latex gloves before she entered. Booth appeared at a door and gestured them in.

"The rest of the place is clear." He told them. "We waited for you before we started."

The room was some kind of study or office, with a desk under the window and bookshelves full of box-files and reference books. Most of the books, Hermione noted, were Muggle ones on what they called 'occult' subjects. In the middle of the floor was a partially-blackened skeleton, surrounded by a contained area of burned floor. Nearby was a waste-paper basket full of burned shreds of paper.

"Do we know who he is?" Brennan asked.

"We know who he _should_ be." Ron said. "This flat was rented to a Stephen Cronin, IC1 male, 42 years old. According to what we found, he was a reporter for a magazine called _The Arcane_, which specialises in reporting so-called supernatural events."

"The door wasn't locked," Booth added. "and there's no sign of forced entry. He let his killer in."

"Or not." Hermione pointed out. "An Opening Charm can bypass all but the most sophisticated modern locks."

"Damn!" Booth snorted. "This magic makes things really complicated!"

"Try living with it!" Hermione told him.

"Well," Brennan said. "if an IC1 male means a white male, then this is also a white male. As far as the skeleton can tell me, he would be in his late 30s to early 40s. There is a surgical pin in his left knee, which will have a serial number we can trace. That should confirm identity.

"We need to get him back to the lab to ascertain cause of death."

"Now you know better than that, Dr Brennan!" Ron said. "_Mortuis revelis_!"

The body was immediately surrounded by a vivid green aura.

"_Avada Kedavra._" Hermione murmured. "The Killing Curse. This is bad, very bad."

"Worse than killing a House-elf?" Booth asked.

"Killing a Muggle with magic is the most serious crime in the wizard world." Ron allowed. "But that's not what 'Mione means."

"This man is American." Hermione said softly. "The American Wizengamot still uses the death penalty for this kind of offence. That's something I _really _don't agree with!"

"Well, it's something our killer should've thought of before he made his choice, isn't it pet?" Ron pointed out.

"I know, I know." Hermione sighed. "The law is the law, even when we don't agree with it. Even so, I hope this man makes a fight of it. I'd far rather you or Agent Booth killed him in a fight than knowing he'd died in some cold-blooded legal revenge."

"I am sorry," Dr Brennan broke in. "But as far as I am concerned, some kind of conjuring trick does not constitute evidence of cause of death!"

"Just cool it, Bones." Booth told her firmly. "You need to accept that we're dealing with things we don't understand here!"

"If," Ron said, "the body was complete, a very thorough autopsy might show evidence of severe neurological disruption. But you'd need special equipment, and to know what you're looking for, to find that much."

"We can argue about that later." Booth said briskly. "Right now, it seems our suspect was trying to destroy evidence of some kind." He indicated the waste-paper basket.

"Angela may be able to reconstruct some of that." Brennan said.

"Between my magic and Angelas' technology, we might be able to retrieve all of it." Hermione noted.

Brennan looked about to say something, but caught Booths' eye, and contented herself by drawing her mouth into a tight, disapproving line.

"What I don't understand," Booth went on, "is why he left the laptop. It's here on the desk, still switched on, logged into some kind of video site."

Ron gave a short laugh. "If our killer is a Pureblood wizard – and it looks that way – he probably didn't know what it was! He certainly wouldn't know how to search it and delete files, because we don't use computers much. They tend to misbehave when there's too much magic about.

"That's why he was so careful to destroy all the written stuff, but only a relatively young and well-informed wizard would know to do anything about the computer. This chap might have thought it was a TV set, if the Muggle was using it to watch videos on."

"OK, we'll take it back with us and see what we can find on it." Booth decided.

"But not just yet." Hermione said firmly. "Just now, can you all go out of the room? I need to use my Sight again."

While Ron waited for his wife near the door, Brennan pulled Booth into a small living room.

"Booth," she began, in a low but intense voice, "I am disturbed by the amount of credence you seem to be giving these people! I know you are a superstitious man, but surely you cannot believe their claims? I have told you often enough what magic actually is."

He held up his hands. "Bones, you've told me what you believe magic is, which needn't be the whole truth or anywhere near it. You've also told me that one of the most important things in science is always to doubt your own conclusions -especially when you find new evidence!

"Now I'm not superstitious, I'm religious. I know you don't see a difference, but there is one. My religion tells me that there is magic, and that people who use it are evil and will go to Hell."

He paused and put his hands on her shoulders.

"But, Bones, I'm a cop. I work on evidence too, and I know about people. Ron and Hermione aren't evil. They're a couple, like us; they're parents, like us; they have jobs, like us. So they can do things we don't understand, so what? The world is full of things we don't understand. You do things every day in that lab that I don't understand, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in what you do!

"These people may or may not be wizards. They may be Mutants, or advanced aliens, or members of one of those secret Government organisations Hodgins is always talking about, it doesn't matter. Whatever they are, they're the genuine article, and they're here to help us. So give them a chance, OK?

"One thing I can tell you. Wizard or not, Ron's a cop, and a good one!"

She looked at him for a moment, then gave a faint smile. "Is this what your instincts tell you? Because although your instincts are completely irrational, I have found them to be almost invariably correct. I cannot accept the idea of magic, but I will accept your opinion of Inspector and Mrs Weasley as people. But you understand that I will make every effort to use proper scientific methods to confirm or disprove their assertions?"

"I think," he told her, "that that's what Hermione would want you to do. She's a lot like you, you know!

"Here she comes now, let's get the laptop and basket and let the FBS know they can come in to clean up."


	4. Chapter 4

**The Elves in the Alley**

**Part Four: A Little Light**

Brennan was surprised and impressed by the speed and care with which the FBS had transferred Cronins' remains to her lab. She did, however, refrain from asking them quite how that had been accomplished.

"I will begin by removing the surgical pin, so that we can confirm identity." She said. "Then I will attempt to find a cause of death."

"Good." Hermione said. "If you can find a Muggle cause of death, we can hand this one over and Ron and I can concentrate on the House-elves. I don't hold out much hope, though!

"In the meantime, Angela and I will work on what I got from my Sight and the burned paper."

Ron, Booth and Sweets were looking at the other information. Piper had dropped off the FBS file on Jason Connover, but it was a thin one.

"Jason Fionn Connover.." Ron read. "Male Caucasian, six feet, brown and blue, no distinguishing marks. Hmm. Half-blood, born thirty-four years ago in Detroit. Irish American. Attended the Randolph Carter School from age 11 to 18, in de Marigny House -didn't know they had a House system there, they don't at Salem. No serious discipline issues, average to good marks, Beater on the House Quidditch team. Head of House describes him as 'bright-eyed and bushy-tailed'.

"He applied to the FBS but didn't make the profile. Same for Whitelighter training. Works in the family broom business as a flight-tester.

"How ordinary can you get?"

"Sure." Booth said drily. "He's a test pilot in a broomstick factory. Real ordinary!"

Ron gave an amused grunt. "Most British Muggles would tell you that's the job their mother-in-law does!"

Sweets and Booth both laughed, then Sweets said; "The profiles tell me more. They both say he's idealistic and committed, but they also say he's a little immature and impatient. Also that he's easily led or dominated by a stronger personality.

"That chimes with what Barlow said, based on the wand. Are there actually wizard psychiatrists, Ron?"

"Oh, yeah." Ron allowed. "They're not so very different from Muggle ones – use the same techniques. I mean, they can use Legilemency – mind-reading – if they have the talent, but only if the patient consents, and if they really need to."

"Well, this tells us _about_ Connover." Booth pointed out. "But it doesn't help us find him. For what it's worth, though, I think he's more of a witness than a suspect. Let's take a look at this laptop."

The device had been switched on and logged in when they found it, so no hacking was necessary. Cronin had clearly been a tidy-minded soul, as there was a folder clearly named 'Arcane', and a series of sub-folders. The sub-folders, however, were designated by some sort of personal code or shorthand. By dint of checking the profiles of the folders, they found and opened the newest one. It held a single document, which proved to contain some rough notes on a potential story.

"So," Booth said, "we have this person – RS – who's offering Cronin a share in a big story. What are the odds that 'RS' is Rosemary Simmons, alias Rita Skeeter?

"The story seems to be a conspiracy theory about a secret group of wizards and, er, Muggles who are working together to take over the world – the 'S', he calls them. We need Hodgins on this. Would this be a big story, Ron?"

"If it's true, it's huge!" Ron said. "Look, the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy officially separated our world from yours in 1692. Since then, it's been illegal to practice genuine magic in front of Muggles unless it's life and death. It's also illegal to admit that wizards and magic exist except at the discretion of the local wizard government.

"Now, obviously, some wizards marry Muggles, and some are born into Muggle families, so some Muggles will always know we exist. By the same token, wizard governments had to keep in touch with the Muggle ones. So the secret isn't all that secret, in some ways.

"Also, there've always been wizards who flout the rules a bit. We let them get on with it, because most of the time, nobody really believes them. For every genuine wizard who does that, there tend to be about a hundred charlatans, so the majority carry the day, as it were."

"But if wizards are actually working with Muggles, without the Council knowing, then there is a problem!"

At that point, they were called into Angelas' area. Brennan and the others were already there. Brennan said without preamble: "I have the information back on the surgical pin. It confirms that the victim is Mr Cronin. What are we looking at here?"

"Well," Hermione said, "I described the people I saw with my Sight to Angela, and she fed the details into this wonderful machine of hers!"

"It took a little hit and miss," Angela put in, "but we managed to get two images. This is the last person Cronin saw, according to Hermione."

Ron was as taken aback by the hologram, Booth noticed, as any of them had been by magic. He gaped for a moment, then broke into a broad grin and muttered "Wicked!"

The image was of a tall, thin man with gaunt, ascetic features, dark eyes and short-cropped iron-grey hair. He was wearing a greenish tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, a deep blue shirt, a shocking pink tie, cricket flannels and heavy work-boots.

"Hmph!" Hodgins remarked. "A suspect who dresses in the dark. Should be easy to spot, but we need to get him before the fashion police put him away for life!"

"Typical dress for a Pureblood wizard who knows little or nothing about Muggles." Hermione told him. "He's probably worn nothing but wizard robes his entire life up to now. You should have seen my father-in-law trying to dress like a Muggle before my mother took him in hand!"

"There's something familiar about this bloke though." Ron peered at the image. "I've not seen him before, but he's still familiar. Can you make an ordinary photo of this, Angela? Excellent! I'll give you the email address for the right section of the Met, and they'll see that the Ministry get a copy. Somebody will know him."

"OK." Angela said. "Now Hermione tells me that this person was in the apartment the day before..."

She was wearing a Muggle business suit, and her glasses were plainer than the jewelled-frame ones she usually wore. But the curly blonde hair, the heavy-jawed face and the thick fingers with the long scarlet nails were unmistakable.

"Rita bloody Skeeter!" Ron announced.

"The witch journalist?" Booth asked.

"Journalist?" Hermione exploded. "_Journalist_? Darling Rita may call herself a journalist, but what she is, is a..." Hermione went on to summarise Ritas' appearance, history, ancestry, parentage, intelligence, talent, personal hygiene and probable sexual habits in terms that made Ron grin, Booth blush and everyone else stare.

After Hermione ran out of steam, there was a moments' silence before Brennan said. "Remarkable vocabulary, cousin! Now, did you make any progress with the burned papers?"

"Some." Angela said, Hermione still being slightly out of breath. "Seems to be mostly notes. Appointments with an RS, who we guess to be this Skeeter woman, and references to something called the 'S'."

"Pretty much what we found on the laptop." Sweets said. "This 'S' is supposed to be some joint wizard-Muggle conspiracy."

"Oh, by Grabthars' Hammer!" Hermione exclaimed. "I'm an idiot! Ron, don't ever call me a genius again!"

"I've never called you a genius." Ron pointed out. "A pain in the arse sometimes, but never a genius. What did you just work out, pet?"

"S is for Scholomance." Hermione told them all. "Muggle legend says it was a kind of school in Transylvania - a place where Muggles were taught the secrets of magic, supposedly by the Devil, who took every tenth scholar as a personal vassal. Vlad the Impaler – Count Dracula – is supposed to have attended the Scholomance before his Undeath.

"But in wizard legend, it's a secret council of Dark wizards and the so-called 'Dark Illuminati' – Muggles as evil as they are brilliant – who manipulate both worlds for their own ends.

"Ron, if Rita has convinced herself the Scholomance actually exists, and started turning rocks over to find it, all sorts of things are going to come crawling out from under them!"

"Including," Sweets surmised, "wizards who believe in this Scholomance, and are prepared to kill to keep it secret?"

"We have our psychopaths as well." Ron allowed. "And our conspiracy theorists!"

"Of course," Hodgins said, "it could just be that this Scholomance actually exists, and that they've sent one of their wizards to shut the Skeeter woman up!"

"Oh, I don't suppose for a moment that there is a Scholomance, as such." Hermione said firmly. "But Ron or Piper will tell you there are wizard supremacist groups out there. A bit like the militias that pop up in rural districts over here, or some of the far-right Muggle groups in Europe. Some of those people are dangerous – barking mad, but dangerous!"

"Right!" Ron said briskly. "This is the bit where 'Mione and I go back to the FBS office and see what we can find out there. The rest of you do what you do, and we'll be in touch if and when we get a decent lead."

As they were preparing to go, Hodgins approached Hermione.

"By Grabthars' Hammer?" He queried. "You're a Questerian?"

"Just a little bit!" Ron groaned. "She's into the lot! _Galaxy Quest, Nebula 9_, and _The Subtle Knife_!"

Hodgins grinned widely. "Classic _Quest_ or the new adventures?"

"Well, I was only a little girl when the original series was on." Hermione told him. "I didn't think much of it then. The new series is much better – they've given Gwen DeMarco a much stronger role as Lt Madison, and she and the Commander have a more adult relationship, now. Not too keen on Dr Lazarus, though; for some reason Alexander Dane reminds me of my old Potions teacher!"

Hodgins nodded sagely, then said. "We get _The Subtle Knife_ on BBC America. Any clues as to who the new Knife-Bearer will be?"

Hermione shook her head. "They're keeping it stitched up tight for another month or so. I'm hoping it'll be a woman this time!"

"Come on!" Ron demanded. "Or we'll be here all day! I knew I was marrying a nerd, but I never realised she was a geek as well!"

"You can see the ball and chain, can't you?" Hermione grinned at Hodgins. "Anyway, he's just as much of a geek when it comes to Quidditch!"

"Quidditch?" Hodgins asked.

"Wizard sport." Hermione told him. "Sort of a cross between basketball, rugby and ultimate fighting on broomsticks. Don't get him started!"

The FBS, it emerged, kept up-to-date files on a number of 'suspect groups'. Hermione noted that Ron set to the reading with a reluctance that hadn't changed since their schooldays.

"I will never know," she told him, "how you got the OWLs you did, given your allergy to ink and parchment!"

"I listened to you, love." He explained. "Fact is, most of what the teachers said went in one ear and out of the other, but everything you ever told me, stuck! My Dad was right when he once said that it isn't what you know, but who you know. I got good OWLs just by hanging out with you. I never said thanks for that, I should have."

"No thanks needed." She replied, hugging him briefly. "Knocking about with you did wonders for my people skills, and fair exchange is no robbery! Besides, all most women really want is to be listened to properly.

"Right, let's get this over with, darling!"

Some of the groups were clearly cranks, with grandiose titles like "The Illuminated Brethren of the Ebon Night". Others, such as the Campaign for the Legal Assertion of Wizard Supremacy (CLAWS) were purely political. But some were more active and potentially dangerous.

"The Brotherhood of the Shadowed Path." Ron noted. "They have groups – they call them chapters – all over Europe and the UK as well. There's files on them back at the Ministry. We think they took in a lot of Death-Eaters after Riddle went down, the ones we couldn't prove anything against. They're a lot more subtle than the Death-Eaters, though. We think there've been a couple of incidents in the Muggle world they were behind, but we could never prove anything."

"That's a possibility, given that our main suspect is a Brit." Hermione agreed. "This lot – The Magical Sons of the Confederacy – kick up a fuss now and then, but seem to be restricted to the Southern States.

"The rest of them seem to be local gangs."

"Hmm." Ron scratched his head. "What's missing here is the Muggle connection. Cronins' notes were vague on a lot of things, but he's quite specific that the conspiracy involves Muggles and wizards working together. There's nothing like that here."

"Well, there are the Open Door people, you know, the ones who tried to recruit me last year." Hermione pointed out. "They're active over here as well."

"True," Ron allowed, "but they don't work _with _Muggles. They just want the Statute repealed. Nice people, very earnest and idealistic, but not the sort to hire killers.

"I'll see if Piper has anything on wizard-Muggle groups."

It turned out that Piper had virtually nothing.

"There are occasions where wizards and Muggles do work together." She told them. "But that's usually official on one or both sides. Harry Dresden, for instance, is still listed as a consultant for the Chicago PD, and of course your brother-in-law has done work with and for several Muggle agencies. All the Ministries, Bureaux and Councils of Magic have some Muggle consultants on call, usually relatives of Half-blood or Muggle-born witches or wizards.

"But as to secret societies, the only one that exists in both worlds is the Freemasons, and they're very respectable, so I'm told!"

"They are." Ron replied. "I'm a Mason myself."

"Ah!" Piper said. "So you're not a sinister, secretive cabal running the world behind the scenes?"

"No." Ron said, deadpan. "That's the Women's Institute. Anything on the Scholomance?"

"Only in the nut file." Piper said. "We get the odd weirdo who claims to be one of their agents, or even the Grand Master, same way the Muggle cops occasionally run up against somebody claiming to be one of the Illuminati or Knights Templar."

"So," Hermione summed up. "We're left with either a lone nutter, a member of the Shadowed Path, or some group we haven't heard of. Nice."

"Fourth option." Ron suggested. "There are still Death-Eaters around, just gone underground for a bit. Some of Voldemort's people are still unaccounted for, you know. They dropped right off the grid. Could be Rita found some."

"Working with Muggles?" Hermione asked.

"If the Aurors were after you, where would you hide?" Ron asked. "Where's the last place anyone would look for a former Death-Eater?"

Hermione gave him a grim look. "Sometimes, my beloved, you are unwholesomely clever! I'm _so _pleased you're on our side!"

Just then, an FBS agent came into the room and exchanged an urgent murmur with Piper. She nodded and turned to Ron and Hermione.

"Something's up!" She said. "I've just been told that Jason Connover was dumped in the Emergency Room at the Potomac Shore Wizard Hospital five minutes ago!"

The building Booth and Brennan had been urgently summoned to was close to the river. It was a large, nondescript structure with boarded-up windows and a general air of disuse. Hermione and Ron were standing by the main doors.

"This does not look like a hospital." Brennan said.

"Of course it doesn't." Booth told her. "It's a wizard hospital – it's supposed to be secret."

Hermione had visitor badges for both of them. "You'll have to hand these back." She instructed them. "And it goes without saying that you mustn't tell anyone about this place."

Ron led them through the small door at the side of the big one. Inside was an area that looked like the Reception of a medium-sized, slightly old-fashioned, hospital. There were men and women in medical garb moving about, along with an assortment of others in clothing ranging from ornate floor-length robes to quite ordinary clothing.

For a moment, Brennan felt disoriented, then she realised what was missing -the constant shrill of telephones ringing. The other noises were the same, clear female voices floating in the air:

_Magical accidents follow the blue line. Curses and hexes follow the yellow line. Magical diseases follow the green line. Magical creature bites and scratches follow the orange line. Visitors follow the white line. The red line is for emergencies only._

_Healer Jackson to Treatment Room Seven._

_Paging Senior Healer McMurray._

And so on.

Then Brennan noticed the fireplaces. There were about two dozen of them, lined up along one wall, big, old-fashioned hearths. As she watched, one of them flared up with a bright green flame and an anxious-looking woman stepped out of it, tenderly cradling a large bullfrog in both hands. She dashed up to a woman in blue.

"Nurse!" She called. "It's Grandpa! He's done it again, forgotten how to change himself back!"

Then a man in a white coat came striding up to them. "Hi there!" He said. "I'm Senior Healer McMurray. You must be the people from the FBS and the FBI, come about Mr Connover?"

He was a solidly-built black man, a couple of inches shorter than Ron, with a cheerful air and a dazzling smile. Introductions were made and he led them off without further ado, talking volubly along the way.

"We have no idea how Mr Connover got here. He's clearly in no condition to have come himself. There are several direct Floos into the Emergency Room, but it's always busy. Somebody must have come in with him, dumped him on one of the chairs and taken off again. As soon as the nurse spotted him, we got him into treatment. Physically, he'll be fine in a few weeks, but mentally...Well, you'll have to see for yourselves."

"You don't have video surveillance in the ER?" Booth asked, surprised at this lack of elementary security procedures. McMurray gave a wry grimace.

"Do you have any idea, Agent Booth, of what the amount of magic we have here can do to technology? We tried it once. One camera, pointed at the door in the main Reception area. After three hours, it turned into the biggest, blackest raven you ever saw! It perched there, over the door, croaking 'Nevermore' every time someone came in! You don't need that in a hospital!"

Booth caught Rons' eye, and both men were overcome by oddly simultaneous fits of coughing. McMurray went on, apparently either oblivious or used to it.

"Dr Brennan, it's an honor to meet you! I've read a lot of your work."

"The Kathy Reichs novels?" She asked.

"No, no, I prefer Richard Castle for that sort of thing – no offense!" McMurray asserted. "I meant your scholarly stuff! Admittedly, the skeletons we get here tend to be more lively than the ones you deal with. But once we've got them calmed down, your techniques are incredibly useful in helping us find out who they used to be so we can get them back where they belong."

Hermione had to make a strenuous effort not to burst into giggles at the look on Brennans' face.

Amusement faded, however, as they were ushered into a private room.

"Whouf!" Ron exclaimed. "He's a bit ripe, isn't he?"

"You should've smelled him when he first came in!" Said the white-coated woman standing beside the bed.

"This is Healer Coulman." McMurray explained. "Mr Connover is her patient, so I'll let her explain."

Healer Coulman was a stocky woman with large, strong hands and a blunt features, her brunette hair was cut in a short bob and frosted with grey and her tone, like her attitude, was brisk and businesslike.

"Mr Connover has been afflicted with a Fleshrot Curse, which rapidly necrotizes tissues around the area where it strikes. Untreated, the gangrene would ultimately invade the entire system. It's an older curse, and not much used nowadays. There are far too many effective treatments, both in wizard and Muggle medicine, for it to be a curse of choice for a killer."

"It's a _very_ old curse." Hermione agreed. "It used to be an Unforgivable until the mid-19th Century. It was taken off the list after that, though I'm not sure why."

"Maggots." Coulman explained. "Wizards had had potions to cure it for some time, but it was around that time that Muggles started the wider use of maggots to treat gangrene."

Brennan nodded. "Maggots would remove the necrotized tissue very quickly and efficiently. They were used in folk medicine for centuries, but the medical profession failed to recognise their value until the Napoleonic Wars. Nowadays, of course, we use antibiotics, surgery and regenerative therapy, though some practitioners have resumed the use of maggots in certain cases..."

"OK, Bones, too much information!" Booth interposed. "Hermione's already as green as the walls. Dr Coulman, can you tell when this guy was..uh..cursed?"

Coulman shrugged. "There are a lot of factors in play. A spell is more like a knife or blunt instrument than like a gun. Any given gun will do the same amount of damage no matter why it's fired, the only variable is the accuracy of the shot. But a spell, like a knife or a baseball bat, will do more or less damage depending on whether the caster deliberately intended to kill, or was angry, or afraid, or just desperate. Also, a spell varies with the power of the caster just like blunt trauma varies with the physical strength of the striker.

"With this spell, the necrotizing of tissue will proceed and spread more quickly or slowly depending on the power and intention of the caster. Where the initial curse struck the victim is also a factor.

"In Mr Connover's case, the initial strike was in the upper arm area, and by the time we got him in here, it had spread most of the way down his arm and into the shoulder. If the intention had been to kill, it was an odd place to hit him – the chest would have been better, as would the head."

"Well," Ron said, "we have reason to believe this happened two nights ago. What does that tell you?"

The Healer considered. "I'd say from that the attacker was moderately powerful, and more angry or frightened than murderous."

"If," Booth suggested, "he was hit in the arm because he got between the caster and the intended target, does that change anything?"

"A little." Coulman allowed. "But even with a hit in the chest, the victim would have had six to eight hours to get into treatment. Besides, if you want an instant kill, you go for _avada kedavra_.

"But this mans' physical condition isn't the only problem. He's been crudely, but thoroughly, Obliviated!

"Now can you please leave? I have to tend to my patient!"

They made their way to a conference room McMurray had put at their disposal.

"Well, that's a bugger up the back!" Ron remarked.

"What is 'Obliviated'?" Brennan wanted to know.

"It means that Jason Connover has had his memory wiped." Hermione told her. "There are two kinds of Memory Charm. The crudest simply removes a chunk of memory, wipes it out. The better you are at the Charm, the more precise you can be about what memories you remove, but if you just cast it blind, you can wipe out a persons' entire life.

"The more refined type is more like a retcon. You can alter memories or substitute false ones. But that takes time and skill."

Ron looked up from pouring coffee. "Hermione is one of maybe twenty witches or wizards in Britain who can cast the spell at that level!" He told them proudly.

Hermione went pink, but smiled at the same time. "My husband has a high opinion of me," she told everyone, "which is largely undeserved. But don't tell him I said so!"

"So." Booth said, ever practical, "which kind of flashy memory-thingy was used on Connover."

McMurray shrugged. "Fast, dirty and brutal." He said. "When he wakes up again, he won't even remember his name!"

"Sod it!" Growled Ron. "No bloody use to us, then!"

"Can his memory not be recovered?" Brennan asked.

"Maybe." Hermione said. "But it will take years of intensive therapy, and even then they might not get all of it back. Remember Lockhart, Ron?"

"Unfortunately, yes." Ron replied. "He's still in St Mungos, last I heard."

"He's got as far as his time at Hogwarts, I'm told." Hermione said, then turned to the others. "Gilderoy Lockhart is a wizard we met when we were twelve or so. He was a teacher at our school and something of a wizard celebrity, famous for hunting down and capturing monsters. It turned out he was actually a charlatan; an expert in memory charms who got the people who genuinely defeated the monsters to tell him their stories, then Obliviated them and took the credit for what they'd done.

"To cut a long story short, at one point he tried to Obliviate Ron and Harry with a damaged wand and the spell backfired, wiping his own memory out. He's been in the wizard hospital under therapy since 1993 or so, and he's only just got as far as his teens in terms of memory recovery."

"The point being," Ron said, "that there's no quick way to get at Connovers' recent memories. We can't use Legilemency or even the Soulgaze, because there's nothing left to see. Or at least, the spell blocks everything in.

"So it's over to you two, now. They'll have his clothes here, d'you reckon your Dr Hodgins can do his brand of magic and figure out where Connover might have been?"

"Can't the FBS do that themselves?" Booth asked.

"Not so easily." Ron allowed. "I mean, we could get a dog animagus or a werewolf to scent the clothes and try to trail them back. But given that Connover was Flooed into the hospital that trail's broken unless we know where he Flooed from.

"Remember, we don't have the electron microscopes and databases you have. They don't work well with magic and we're still trying to come up with magical equivalents or ways to shield that kind of tech so we can use it."

"Well, then, we should obtain the clothing and head back to the Jeffersonian at once." Brennan said.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Elves in the Alley**

**Part Five: Muggle Magic**

Camille was waiting for them when they got back.

"I got a phone call from England." She told them. "Someone called Kingsley Shacklebolt?"

"Our boss." Ron informed her. "The Minister of Magic for the UK. You're honoured, Dr Saroyan, the Minister doesn't deal directly with Muggles very often, he usually goes through the Muggle authorities."

"Well, he was real polite." Camille paused and gave a small smile. "It was kinda hard to concentrate on what he was saying at first. His voice..."

"Oh, I _know_!" Hermione interrupted. "It's like listening to chocolate, isn't it?"

"He's married." Ron said, with the air of a man who had heard this conversation before – rather too often. "What did he have for us, Dr Saroyan?"

"Call me Camille, Ron, we're not all that formal over here." She told him, then went on. "He said somebody in the Auror Department recognised the picture we sent and dug out a file. The suspects' name is Abelard Prince. Kingsley said to tell you he's the younger brother of an Eileen Prince?"

"Oh, bloody Hell!" Ron groaned. "Will that man never stop haunting us?"

"This has nothing to do with Snape, Ron." Hermione chided him. "Anyway, he can't haunt us - Harry saw him cross over, remember?"

She turned to the others. "Eileen Prince was Pureblood witch from an old family. They cut off all contact with her when she married a Muggle called Tobias Snape. Their son was a Half-blood wizard called Severus who eventually became a senior teacher at Hogwarts, the British wizard school."

"He was also a Death-Eater and Voldemorts' mole in Hogwarts." Ron added. "Until Dumbledore turned him. He died in the Battle of Hogwarts.

"That's why the suspect looked familiar. Snape must have taken after his mother."

"Well, anyway, Kingsley had someone at Scotland Yard email a file over. I've got it here." Camille cleared her throat and began to read:

"Abelard Gelert Prince, born 1942 – he doesn't look that old- youngest child of Reginald Prince and Isabella Prince, nee Greengrass. Both old Pureblood families. Attended Hogwarts 1953-59, Slytherin House. Described as a better than average student with particular skills in Transfiguration, Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts. A loner, not popular with his classmates. Said to be morose, unsociable and vindictive. Expelled before taking his NEWTs for using the Fleshrot Curse on another student.

"In 1960, he was hired as a buyer by Borgin & Burkes, of Knockturn Alley, London. Has continued in that post until the present day, and is now a Senior Special Buyer.

"Prince was investigated by the Aurors in the 1970s and again in the 1990s for possible Death-Eater affiliations, but nothing was ever found. Lives alone in a small apartment in Termin Alley, London. He keeps in regular touch with his parents – both still alive – but is unmarried, has no girlfriend or boyfriend – no friends of any kind, it seems.

"His employers say he took an extended leave of absence two weeks ago, and they have no idea where he is. The Aurors are getting a search warrant for his apartment."

"Huh!" Ron grunted. "I told Harry that warrant lark was a bad idea. We could've turned over this blokes' gaff and have everything we needed by now!"

"Or not." Hermione reminded him. "We don't know that he's killed anyone, Ron, not for sure. Innocent until proven guilty, remember?"

"I know, pet." He told her. "I just get nostalgic for the old ways. You know – innocent until proven Slytherin!"

She laughed and shook her head. "You're impossible!"

"I don't get how this can be the same guy." Angela complained. "The image we got didn't look much over fifty, much less seventy!"

Hermione nodded. "Wizards tend to age more slowly than Muggles. Even Muggle-borns like me can have a life expectancy of up to 120 years. Some Purebloods can live nearly 200 years."

"Of course," Ron added, "you can get a bit gaga by then!"

"Ron's just started on that a bit early." Hermione commented.

There was laughter, in which Ron joined heartily, then Booth said:

"OK, so we know this guy Prince has used that Fleshrot Curse before, so that's one point. What else? I mean from a wizard point of view, because from what I heard, he's got a serial killers' personality."

"Well," Ron said, "this isn't hard science, but most of the darkest British wizards throughout history have come through Slytherin House. Salazar Slytherin himself was a nasty piece of work, though it seems that wasn't entirely his fault."

"Anthropologically speaking, Ron, you might have a point." Brennan chimed in unexpectedly. "The expectations of closed groups such as this Slytherin House have been proven to have a profound effect on the views and attitudes of members. If Prince was exposed to an atmosphere in which black magic was considered appropriate, he would be more likely to use it. What are the other characteristics of Slytherin House?"

"Well, this is sort of fuzzy, and it doesn't speak for everyone from any given house," Ron said slowly, "but the four Houses were named after the four wizards who founded Hogwarts, and each of them had specific ideas. Gryffindor wanted courage and honour, Hufflepuff hard work and kindness, Ravenclaw looked for intellect, but Slytherins' prime concern was purity of blood.

"Of course, a lot of other stuff gathers round ideas like that over time, and Hogwarts is over a thousand years old. Slytherin House takes a lot of students from old wizard families, mostly Purebloods but some Half-bloods if one parent was a Pureblood from an old family. They tend to be politically conservative, very conscious of their ancestry. A lot of them think that their ancestry entitles them to special consideration and respect, like the Muggle aristocracy."

"Or old Colonial families in Boston." Hodgins put in sourly.

"If you say so." Ron allowed. "I've never been to Boston. At any rate, apart from that, Slytherins tend to have an ethic – if you can call it that – that rules are for other people. They'll do anything they can, inside or outside the rules, to get what they want. No Slytherin ever played a game for the games' sake – they play to win and if that means cheating, so be it – they feel entitled. They're also ruthless.

"I suppose you're right, Temperance, that that kind of thinking would draw a lot of them toward the Dark Arts – we don't call it black magic by the way, Black Magic are the chocolates I buy 'Mione as a pay-day treat.

"As for the rest, well a lot of them dislike Muggles, and absolutely despise Muggle-borns – Mudbloods, they call 'em."

"I see." Brennan nodded. "So we have an individual who is already inclined to violence and vindictiveness, who has spent his schooldays - when young people are very impressionable – in an atmosphere where ruthlessness and amorality are the norm. The outlook for his character as an adult is not positive. Do you concur, Dr Sweets?"

Sweets shrugged. "If there were already sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies that atmosphere would certainly encourage them."

"Add to that that working for Borgin & Burkes wouldn't help." Hermione noted. "They're the biggest buyer and seller of cursed and dark magical items in Europe."

"But it would give him the opportunity to travel, right?" Booth asked. "Meet up with people who might share any views he might have?"

"More than likely." Hermione agreed. "But right now we have to let Dr Hodgins here do his Muggle magic on Connovers' togs. Mind if I sit in?"

"Not at all!" Hodgins loved showing off.

"Do you wish to sit in also, Ron?" Asked Brennan.

He shook his head. "Not really. Watching someone go over somebody elses' boxer shorts with tweezers and a paintbrush doesn't do anything for me. Why?"

"Because I have made some discoveries I would like to share with you." She replied guardedly.

"Fair enough." He replied. "Show me."

Dr Hodgins, Hermione noted, went about his work with a steady concentration at odds with his whimsical manner. Nevertheless, he clearly relished the opportunity to expound to an interested audience.

"I'll look at the underwear later." He told her. "Just to be thorough, but he was fully clothed when found, so unless we need to look for evidence of sexual activity, the underwear won't be very revealing. Could he have been sleeping with this Rita Skeeter?"

"Not likely, unless he was blind or had taken a love potion!" Hermione asserted. "She's what Ron would call a 'double-bag job'!" To his puzzled look she explained. "One bag to put over her head, and another to put over his in case hers comes off."

He laughed, then went on. "We have his shirt, t-shirt, jeans and boots. All of them bought in chain stores if the labels are any guide. The arm has been cut off the shirt, looks like it was done with a knife. That must have been done before he came into the hospital, or we'd have the sleeve."

"By a Muggle." Added Hermione. "A witch or wizard would have used _diffindo_ or Transfigured the sleeve into a dressing."

"Right. Well the matching area of the t-shirt, and into the shoulder, shows stains consistent with being in contact with necrotic tissue – I've seen that a lot. Shame there's no coat or jacket, that could have told us a lot more about where our man has been. But the boots are good. They're fairly new walking boots with good deep cleats. Perfect for picking up trace. The jeans will be good as well. By the looks of them he fell at least once, so we should be able to get trace from them as well.

I'll scrape the boot soles first, then look at what I get out under magnification. Try to separate out any organic trace from dust and gravel. Then I'll examine what I get microscopically and chemically, see what matches I can get from our specimen bank and databases that can tie in to a locality. I'll also swab the soles for chemical traces and do the same.

"The procedure for the jeans will be pretty much the same, but if our man did fall a couple times, there'll be stronger traces.

"What I get from the shirt will tell me more about where he's been indoors than out. It might have picked up trace from furniture or bedding.

"So your people can't do all this?"

"I think," Hermione said, "that it's fairer to say we don't. For one thing, until fairly recently, our criminal elements have been a lot less sophisticated than yours. In a lot of ways, Aurors can be more like old-fashioned village constables. Our world is fairly small and even where wizards don't crowd together, everybody magical in an area knows everybody else. A lot of the time, it's just talking to people -good old leg-work.

"Recently, we've developed those forensic charms you've seen, and more people are being trained to use the Sight. That all helps. But all this stuff..." her gesture took in the electron microscopes, computers, spectrographic analysers and so on "...we simply can't use!"

"Not allowed or not able?" Asked Hodgins.

"Neither, really." Hermione told him. "As individuals, we're perfectly capable of using technology, most of the time. Some very powerful wizards do have a bad effect on electrics and electronics, but it's not that common. At home, Ron and I have all the stuff you'd expect; PC, laptop, satellite TV, digital radio, stereo, Xbox and what-have-you. But we live in a four-bedroomed semi in a nice area of Surrey, built by Muggles for Muggles. The only magical things in the house are the people and a few personal items like our wands, Rons' broom, and the Sneakoscopes we use for security. We cheat a bit and run the cars on magic rather than petrol, but that's about it most of the time.

"But where I work, at the Ministry of Magic, the entire building is magical. It's much bigger on the inside, for instance. The climate control, the lifts, all that sort of thing, is all magical. In that kind of environment, advanced technology tends to misbehave – blow up, shut down or just start behaving oddly. The only computer in the building is in Kingsleys' office, and that's a military-grade, pulse-hardened one. That works fine, but we can't just go buying up vast numbers of them. Muggle governments get a bit twitchy if somebody who officially doesn't exist starts buying lots of military grade hardware!

"Our researchers in the Department of Mysteries are working to come up with magical devices and spells that can do all the things your technology does, but it's a long process. Even then, wizards can be resistant to new ideas, especially ones that smack of 'imitating Muggles for the sake of it'. We don't have that many wizards who are prejudiced against Muggles any more, but we do have a lot who are very proud and protective of 'magical culture' and the 'wizard way of doing things'."

Brennan led Ron to her section of the lab, then faced him and began in a tone that indicated a lot of mental rehearsal.

"Ron, I admit I have had some difficulty in accepting yourself and Hermione as being genuine. I am a scientist and a rationalist first and foremost. Also, my anthropological training has given me a very different, and apparently incorrect, idea of what magic is. However, the two of you have consistently demonstrated the ability to do things which the rest of us cannot. More importantly, you have openly admitted that there are certain things we can do better than you. I was also impressed by your frank admission that you believe there must be a scientific explanation for your abilities.

"All that said, I still undertook a very careful examination of Mr Cronins' remains. I freely admit that my aim in this was to find a non-magical cause of death. To disprove you. I apologise for this."

Ron shook his head and grinned at her. "Nobody should apologise for doing their job, Temperance! I don't know a lot about Muggle science, but 'Miones' dad told me once that the foundation of the method is continually trying to disprove theories. That made sense to me, and what you did makes sense. What did you find?"

"Nothing that would indicate any cause of death other than this curse you spoke of." She replied. "However, I would like you to look at this." She indicated a microscope. As Ron peered into it, clumsily adjusting the focus, she went on. "That is the implant I took from Mr Cronins' leg. Please examine the surface carefully."

Ron straightened, frowning. "Looks like crazy paving." He said. "That can't be right, can it?"

Brennan shook her head. "That implant, like most modern ones, is made from a titanium steel alloy. The alloy is very hard and durable. But this sample has a pattern of hairline cracks throughout its' structure. I know of nothing short of severe impact or explosion which could do this, and neither of those have occurred in this case."

Ron pondered. "I've seen people hit with the killing curse go flying backwards for yards." He revealed. "But you'd think any impact that could do this to a hard alloy would have pulped the body. On the other hand it is a very ancient spell, and at that time, wizards were still having problems dealing with iron and steel. Nowadays it's modern alloys, plastics and ceramics - a killing curse can't penetrate Kevlar, and a magical shield can't stop Teflon-coated bullets. And of course nothing, but nothing, works on adamantium – it can't even be Transfigured."

"So you are saying that whatever effect the curse has on the body, it might well have a different one on the implant?" Brennan enquired.

"Afraid so." Ron admitted. "Still and all, this is useful stuff, Tempe. Thanks!"

"Well, that is not all I have for you." She told him. "In order to confirm identity beyond doubt, the CSU took samples of epithelial and other DNA from the apartment for use as exemplars. Since the fire had not damaged the bones too deeply, I was able to extract mitochondrial DNA for comparison.

"The patten here is the exemplar, the one below it was taken from the body."

Ron frowned again. "I'm no expert, but those don't match!"

"They do," Brennan informed him, "except in one particular. This specific part of the pattern has been altered. I searched the medical and other databases, on what Booth would call a 'hunch'. This pattern is very rare, and is only found in some cases of stillbirth or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Researchers believe it is what they call a 'lethal gene', fatal to the possessor.

"If I am right, Ron, the Killing Curse works by rewriting the victims' DNA into a lethal configuration. Death would be instantaneous and no resuscitation would be possible."

"Bloody Hell!" Ron said. "Of course, we'd never know because we don't do DNA analysis – most wizards have never heard of DNA. We've only just started using fingerprints in the last fifteen years or so. As for Muggles that've been killed with it, we've been too busy covering it up and rearranging peoples' memories for any other Muggle scientist to find this. Not that many of them could – there aren't many like you!

"How sure are you of this?"

"I will need to do more research." Brennan told him. "For that I would need the cooperation of the wizard authorities. Is that likely?"

"I should bloody well hope so!" Ron said vehemently. "Look, Tempe, when this case is all done and dusted, can you write some sort of brief or paper? If you send it to me, we can get it to Harry Dresden and he can take it to the White Council. We should be able to get some action at that level, not all of them are idiots!"

He walked over to her and gave her a brief, unexpected, hug. "That's brilliant work, Tempe! Thanks again."

She returned the hug with less than her usual awkwardness – Ron did that to people – and said. "Don't thank me yet. This is science, there's a long way to go."

It was less than an hour later that Hodgins called them all together.

"I normally hate rush jobs," he told them, standing in front of a map, "but in this case it was easy. I got soil samples from the boots and jeans. The soil is a very rich and fertile alluvial one, that's usually only found around here." He pointed to an area on the map.

"That's way out of town." Booth said in a pained voice.

"I know." Hodgins said. "but there were also pollutants that are strictly urban, so I did a little research. Around twenty years ago, some developers built a lot of big houses in this area. They wanted them to have gardens, but the soil there is useless, so they imported tons of this topsoil.

"But it didn't work out and now most of the houses are split into two or three bed apartments let on short-term leases. Mostly people who come to town for a couple months on internships or as campaign volunteers – this is a political town – and don't want to stay in a hotel for that long. It's as good a place as any for strangers to lie low for a bit."

"Great!" Booth said. "I'll get onto the leasing companies."

Then his cellphone rang. He spoke tersely into it for a few seconds, then put it away and spoke decisively.

"Looks like you were right, Hodgins. We just got a hit on Ralph Coles' credit card. He used it at a bodega in the middle of that district less than an hour ago!"

The owner of the bodega had little to tell them, except that Cole had been coming into his store for food, drink and occasionally medical supplies for about two weeks, and that until today he had always paid cash. He had, however, pointed out the direction Cole came and went from.

"Must've run out of cash." Booth surmised as they cruised slowly up the street. "Thought using the card in a small store would be safer than using an ATM. Would've worked, but I had them flag the card high priority. If this Prince guy is after Cole and Skeeter, they're in a lot of danger."

"We all are, if he's about!" Ron asserted. "If you see him, shoot first and ask questions afterwards, because he probably will!"

Ralph Cole was spotted outside a rather run-down looking house. Somewhat prosaically, he was taking out the rubbish. Booth brought the SUV to a halt and he and Ron jumped out.

"Ralph Cole?" Booth called sharply. "FBI! Come forward and keep your hands where we can see them!"

Cole promptly took off running, hurdling the fence between two properties before jinking into the street. Booth and Ron went after him.

"They almost always run." Brennan remarked. "And Booth always runs after them. It's very inefficient. Shall we take the car, Hermione?"

"No." Hermione said firmly. "We're going into the house. Unless Rita was at a window, she might not have seen that. If she doesn't know she'd been rumbled, she won't have Apparated away, and we might be able to surprise her.

"I'm going to make a citizens' arrest, and I do hope she resists!"

The two women moved quietly into the house. The front door was ajar, and from the next floor they could hear the sound of music – a female vocalist. Hermione pulled Brennan close and whispered: "That's Celestina Warbeck, they call her the Singing Sorceress. Somebody up there is listening to Wizard Wireless! C'mon!"

Neither woman was trained in stealthy approach, though Brennan had more experience than Hermione, but the music covered their entrance into the apartment, the door of which was also ajar. They had time to take in the comfortable but rather worn appearance of the living room before a figure emerged from the kitchen area.

"You were a while, Ralph, dear! Was there...oh!"

The woman was rather short and dumpy, she had a heavy-jawed face and thick-fingered hands with scarlet nails. She was dressed in a rather rumpled skirt and blouse, her blonde hair was untidy, and her expression of surprise almost comical.

"Hello, Rita," said Hermione in a voice of icy sweetness, "long time no see. Now just stand still and, as the saying goes, keep your hands where we can see them!"

Rita had recovered herself. She gave a false, dazzling smile. "Hermione, darling! You know, if I'd expected anyone to come after me, it would have been you! I suppose Reliable Ron and Handsome Harry aren't far behind? Or maybe not? Is this personal, dearie? You never did forgive me for telling the truth about your little trip after the war, did you?"

"Shut. The fuck. Up." Hermione gritted.

Worried by the uncharacteristic obscenity, Brennan broke in.

"This is not personal, Ms Skeeter. This is about your safety. We have reason to believe you're being hunted by an extremely dangerous individual."

"Well I am!" Rita said silkily. "Or maybe you just don't realise how dangerous little Mrs Weasley is? Everybody talks about Harry Potter, but some of us realise that dear Hermione was the mastermind behind Voldemorts' defeat.

"Well, this has been delightful, but I really must go now!"

Rita spun and made a grab for something on a nearby bookcase. A jet of red light shot out of Hermione's wand and struck her of the side of the head. She crashed to the floor with a satisfying thump.

"Stupid cow!" Hermione growled. "Did she think she'd be quicker on the wand than _me_?"

She went over to Rita and pointed her wand again. Fine black cords shot out of the end and bond the unconscious woman securely.

"You have the right to lie there until the lads get back." Hermione said.

"You seemed unduly upset by her reference to a journey." Brennan remarked. "Why is that?"

"Oh, it's complicated." Hermione said. "In our teens, during Voldemorts' puppet regime in England, Harry, Ron and I went on the run. I mean, we had a mission, but not much intel and no support, really. Things got messy, Ron was injured, felt useless, got very depressed at one point. Like the silly cow I was in those days, I was giving Harry all the support I could, because the main burden was on him, and I forgot about Ron, neglected him. There was a quarrel and Ron left. Harry and I were alone together for months, then Ron came back just when we needed him most. By the end of the war, Ron and I were together.

"But before I left home the last time, I'd edited my parents' memories. I gave them new identities and made sure they left the country. All this was to keep them safe, because the Death-Eaters were after Harry and I was known to be one of his closest associates. Afterwards, I went to find them and bring them back, and Ron came with me, of course. We didn't want to be apart any more. We found Mummy and Daddy and brought them home, with their old memories restored.

"Then Rita wrote her nasty little book about the war and Harry. In it, she claimed that Harry and I had been sleeping together while Ron was gone, and that the reason I went abroad was to have an abortion because I was pregnant by Harry. She said that I married Ron because he was the only one who'd accept me now I was ruined, and that Harry wanted to marry Ginny because she's a Pureblood and Harry's not really any different from Voldemort!"

"Ruined?" Brennan was puzzled. "That makes no sense, Hermione! It would have been understandable under the circumstances, if you and this Harry had slept together at least once. I can understand hostility to the idea of termination if your world is strongly pro-life. But for a young man and woman, both, presumably, of legal age, to engage in sexual activity at a time of stress and danger is not in any way reprehensible, or even unusual. You are not a fallen woman, Hermione!"

"You don't know our world!" Hermione told her. "British wizards party like it's 1955! They're very strait-laced, you'd think the 60s and 70s never happened. After Ron and I had been together a month, I got fed up of waiting for him to make a move and asked him to take me to bed. He was scandalised! It never occurred to him to have sex before we were married! Not," she added with a grin, "that he took a lot of persuasion!

"And for the record, I never slept with Harry. He's always been like a brother to me, and we used to cuddle sometimes, when I was upset, but never anything else."

The chase, Ron saw, was likely to be a long one. All three men were fit, and while Cole had a slight edge in speed – enough to stay ahead for now – he probably lacked the stamina of the other two. Still, they were burning daylight. Ron slowed to a walk, glanced around, then turned on the spot and vanished with a 'pop'.

Booth, fixed on the chase, hadn't noticed that Ron was gone, and thus was as surprised as Cole when the big man stepped from behind a bush in front of the fugitive. Cole made to jink round him and Ron stuck out his arm at shoulder height. Cole ran right into it, his feet went from under him and he landed on the ground with a thud!

Booth slowed to a dog-trot, wincing as he did so. Rons' arm hadn't moved. It must have been like running into a brick wall! By the time Booth came up, Ron had already deftly cuffed and frisked the prisoner. He looked up at Booth. "Got any evidence bags?"

Booth had, and they bagged up a pistol he recognised as the SIG model that had been used on the House-elves, as well as a nasty-looking Ka-BAR combat knife.

"Well, the FBS will want this guy for killing the female House-elf." Ron said. "Though if it all happened the way we think, it'll probably come down to second-degree. We'd better warn him, though, that wizard courts don't plea-bargain. Still, they'll let us talk to him first."

"Good." Booth said, the took out his cell and called Brennan.

"Bones? You OK? Where are you?"

"Back at the apartment house." She replied. "On the second floor. Hermione and I have Ms Skeeter in custody. Did you secure Cole?"

"We did." Booth told her. "But Ron hit him, so I don't think he'll be saying much for a while!"

The phone must have been on speaker, because Booth heard Hermione say: "When my old man thumps somebody, they stay thumped!"

"OK." Booth said. "Stay put, we'll see you soon."


	6. Chapter 6

**The Elves in the Alley**

**Part Six: Out of the Shadows**

Ralph Cole was singing like a canary.

"I thought it'd be like the old days." He told Ron and Booth. "Back in the day, I worked for the Hellfire Club, the Inner Circle. They paid well, we got weapons like we'd never seen before, and it was exciting. We fought Mutants, mostly, the X-Men and the Brotherhood. I'm one of the few people who ever crossed Wolverine and lived!

"Then the Daleks came, and the Inner Circle went down, along with the Brotherhood and the X-Men. I went to work for IFIMO to pay the rent, and because I figured maybe those two guys hadn't changed so much. But they'd gone straight and the work was just bodyguarding low-rent celebs and paranoid businessmen. I got bored.

"I overheard what Rita said to the bosses when she came to the office, and I was interested. When they turned her down I spoke to her and she offered me a private contract."

"What did she want you to do?" Booth asked.

"Watch her back." Cole said. "She told me she was a journalist who'd gotten onto something big and dangerous. She talked about wizards and things but, heck, I'd seen weirder stuff. No witch could be scarier than Storm when she's fighting mad! Or hotter!

"She said that ordinary folk like us aren't supposed to know about wizards, but that there was this group of wizards and normals – Muggles she calls us – who work together. The usual taking over the world kinda thing. Me, I figured she was a little crazy, but Jason took her real serious."

"This would be Jason Connover?" Ron said.

"Yeah. He was kinda innocent but a real nice guy. Is he gonna be all right? He was real sick and getting worse. I had to threaten Rita to get her to take him someplace."

"He's in a wizard hospital." Ron said. "His arm is better, but Rita wiped his memory. He doesn't know who he is."

"Ah, shit, that broad is crazy paranoid!" Cole said. "Look, she told me this group had eyes everywhere, so she had me drop off the grid. Switch off my cell, clear my bank account, all that. Well, I wasn't that far gone. I set up another account to keep paying the rent, and I hung onto my credit cards. Good job, cause I went through the cash. Rita don't like to live cheap!

"Anyway, the night it all went South, Rita had got a letter from this guy called Prince. Came attached to an owl, for crissake! He said he had info for her and asked to meet in that alley. He hadn't given her much time, and we didn't have a car, but she said she could get us there and to get ready. Then she and Jason grabbed one of my arms each and..and. Shit, I don't know. I felt like I'd been pushed through a pipe from the apartment to that alley!"

"Side-along Apparation." Ron said. "Thought that was it. Not nice, is it?"

"Man, I thought I was gonna barf!" Cole asserted. "Then I hear what I think is a shot from up above. I draw, see some kinda monster on the fire-escape, and shoot it. There's another bang, and this old guy appears and points a stick at me. My gun flies outta my hand, breaks my finger doin' it. Then there's a lotta shouting and lights. I go for the old guy, but Jason jumps in front of me and gets hit by whatever was comin' at me.

"He goes down, squealin' like a stuck pig. Rita and I grab him and we hightail it outta there. Couple blocks up, Rita does somethin' that fixes my finger, I boost a car, and we go back to the apartment. We get Jason inside and to bed. I get my backup SIG, then drive the car across town, dump it in a vacant lot and torch it.

"By the time I get back, Jasons' arm is turnin' black and startin' to stink, so I know it's gangrene. Rita says we can't go to a hospital, she needs to find a Healer. I try to help him as much as I can, until earlier today when I finally told her that if she didn't get him to a wizard hospital, I'd take him to the nearest emergency room myself, and shoot her if she tried to stop me!

"The rest you know. We ran outta cash, so I had to use my card at the bodega. How you got onto it so fast, I don't know. Write that up, and I'll sign it. Jail don't worry me, but more of this shit does!"

He flopped back in his seat, then looked at Ron. "You're a Brit like Rita. You a wizard?"

"Yeah, why?" Ron asked.

"Listen pal, do me a favor." Cole said. "If you meet a broad called Celestina Warbeck, shoot her, willya? You'll be doin' the whole world a favor! Also, could you find a way to let me know how the Tutshill Torpedoes do?"

"Leave it with me." Ron told him.

Rita, at first, seemed less disposed to be voluble. She lounged in the chair opposite Hermione and Brennan with an amused grin. Still, she wasn't looking at her best. While she had clearly mastered a Cleaning Charm, the De-Creasing Charm seemed to be beyond her, so her once-smart Muggle clothes were clean, but sadly crumpled. She also seemed to be unused to doing her own hair, which was clean but untidy. Nevertheless, she went straight on to the offensive.

"Now Hermione, let's get off on the right foot, shall we?" She drawled. "Unlike hubbykins, _you're _not an Auror. Unlike dear Ralph,_ I _haven't killed anyone. And I assume your Muggle sidekick here is also _not_ police, because she didn't wave a badge at me and go on about all the rights I'm supposed to have. Am I right, darling?"

The last question was addressed to Brennan, who replied in a neutral tone: "My name is Dr Temperance Brennan. I am a Forensic Anthropologist and a consultant for the FBI."

"Oh, dear!" Rita smiled. "How impressive! And how very irrelevant! Now, I am entirely prepared to give a statement on Ralphs' misdeeds - preferably to some handsome young FBS agent – but as a mere witness, I don't have to, and won't, talk about anything else."

Hermione shook her head, and said quietly. "I don't think you grasp the situation fully, Rita. Stephen Cronin is dead, killed with _Avada Kedavra. _We think he was murdered by the same wizard that cursed Jason Connover. We also think he's after you. A wizard who doesn't hesitate to kill a Muggle won't have a qualm about finishing you off, Rita!"

That was a telling shot. Rita went white. "Stephen's dead?" She asked. Both the other women nodded. Rita seemed to consider for a moment, then said. "Right! It seems we have to make another bargain, Hermione! I will give you everything I have on the organisation that had Stephen killed -the one I was investigating. In return, you will guarantee me exclusive rights to the story when it all comes out. It's what Stephen would have wanted – he was a journalist to the core!"

Hermione rested her elbows on the table, linked her hands and rested her chin on them. From this position, she offered Rita a smile of ineffable – and deadly – sweetness.

"Rita, darling," she purred, "I still don't think you fully grasp the implications of the situation you're in. I know, because of my Sight, that you were in Stephens' apartment, as well as the other suspect. Now I can't put my hand on my heart and swear that it wasn't _you _who killed him. Stephen Cronin wasn't just a Muggle, he was an _American_ Muggle. What that means is that you're a person of interest in a capital crime, Rita!

"Now you're right when you say I'm not an Auror, and that Dr Brennan isn't an FBI agent. But just down the corridor is one very tough FBI agent named Seeley Booth – a man who is a stranger to compromise. Even worse, from your viewpoint, is that Ron is also there. Now Ron _is_ an Auror, and he's currently on secondment to the FBS, with full powers. All he has to do is get out his mirror and make a call to the people in Phedder Alley. This is Muggle murder by magic – it'd take Ron all of five minutes to get a warrant to Soulgaze you.

"You're in no position to bargain, Rita! While I admit that, on a personal level, I'd enjoy standing on the other side of that mirror and watching Ron peel your nasty little mind like an onion, I still owe you some consideration for the interview you did with Harry for the _Quibbler_. So the deal is, you tell us everything, now, and we don't call those two very carnivorous males in!"

The look Rita gave Hermione was one of pure hatred. Hermione faced it unflinchingly, with the same smile. Ritas' glare slowly mutated from venom to fear.

"You'd do it, wouldn't you?" She whispered. "What happened to you, Hermione? You were such a sweet, swotty little girl when I first knew you. Where did this hard-core bitch come from?"

"There was a war." Hermione said stonily. "Maybe you noticed? I saw friends die. I and the two men I love most in the world all had to do things that sickened us. Then we had to deal with you lying about it, Rita. If I'm hard, you had a hand in making me that way. But I'm not that hard, not really, and neither is Ron. But Harry is, and Harry would be_ really_ interested to know you've got your nose in this, Rita. What d'you think he'd do if he were here? Maybe I should give him a call...?"

Fear turned to stark terror. Rita pulled a pad toward herself and fumbled with a a pencil. "You're supposed to use the pointed end." Brennan told her.

Rita scribbled something on the pad, then took a chain from round her neck with a key on it. She pushed them both across the table. "That's the key and number of a left luggage locker in Grand Central Station in New York." She told them. "All the documentation is there. I'll just give you the high points now.

"The organisation calls itself the Scholomance. It's not ancient, they just took the name of the legend. It only started up after Voldemort fell. The Council has ten members – the Master, four Muggles, four wizards and the Outsider. All of them have power, all of them have a grudge, and they're after control.

"I pieced it all together out of some apparently unrelated incidents in both worlds. I have some clues as the the identities of some of their agents. It seems that Abelard Prince is one of them, which I didn't know before. He contacted me, told me he was a buyer for Borgin & Burkes' who'd picked up some interesting information in Europe. But it was an ambush. Not by any means an expert one – I don't think Prince understood what Ralph was capable of until that House-elf was killed. I dare say Ralph has already told your people everything. He and I were on the verge of a serious falling-out.

"But they must have someone at _Arcane_ – Stephens' magazine – or they'd not have known about him. Poor Stephen, he was such a nice man, and he understood about our work.

"All the detail is in the files, but I'm afraid I can't tell you where Prince might be, or for that matter what his actual connection to the Scholomance is. He's not clever or powerful enough to be one of the Council."

"One thing I do not understand." Brennan said. "Why, Ms Skeeter, were you working on this story? From what I understand, you are more of a gossip columnist than an investigative reporter. You would not have the contacts or skillset to cover this story properly. You were placing yourself in harms' way. It seems uncharacteristic."

"Have you ever been desperate, Dr Brennan?" Rita asked in a low, tight voice. "The source of _my_ desperation has a name. Harry Potter. He and his friends blackmailed me into hiding when they were teenagers, then used me as a catspaw later. I managed to claw my way back from that, only to have Potter ruin my reputation again!

"Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived -twice! The Chosen One. The Victor of Hogwarts, the Master of Death. The man said to possess all three of the Deathly Hallows. He went from schoolboy to Head of the Auror Department in less time than it takes most people to get a single promotion. He's on first name terms with the Minister of Magic and with a key member of the White Council. He's forged links with the wealthy and powerful in your world. He's packing Hogwarts and the Ministry with his friends and agents.

"Potter is a powerful wizard, Dr Brennan. But he is also brilliant, cunning and utterly ruthless, what they call over here a 'stone killer'. Who else, I ask you, is worthy, capable, of being the Master of the Scholomance?"

Hermione shot to her feet, turned on her heel and strode out of the room, slamming the door. Rita permitted herself a small smile which vanished as Brennan leaned toward her.

"I am not acquainted with Harry Potter. But Hermione Weasley is a colleague I respect, and she is also family. You do not have your wand, and I am an expert in martial arts. There are no witnesses here, Ms Skeeter and if I chose to beat the crap out of you and afterwards claimed you assaulted me, which of us is more likely to be believed, given your reputation?

"The only thing stopping me is this. You have forfeited the right to any further protection from Hermione which your former association may have obliged her to give. When Mr Potter finds out what you have been doing, he will doubtless wish to discuss the matter with you. Whatever damage I might do would be insignificant compared to that, would it not?"

Brennan got up and made to leave. Then turned back on an impulse. An impulse that split Rita's lip, cracked a tooth and left her sprawled groaning on the floor of the interview room.

"You should not have tried to jump me." Brennan said distinctly. "I will obtain medical attention for you. At some point."

She went outside. Hermione was leaning against the corridor wall, staring at nothing. She looked over at Brennan with a faint smile. "I'm sorry I walked out on you, Temperance. It's at times like this I wish I were a man. They seem able to separate personal things from the job, don't they?"

Quite suddenly, Hermiones' eyes filled. Instinctively, Brennan stepped close and put her arms around the shorter woman, holding her tight.

"Why does she have to be such a cow?" Hermione sobbed. "When we were kids, she made Harry out to be an attention-seeking neurotic. Then she tried to persuade people that Dumbledore was using him as a tool in a campaign to become Minister of Magic. Then she told everyone that Harry didn't want to defeat Voldemort so much as replace him. Now she's accusing him of wanting to take over the world. She just won't let up on him!"

She gave Brennan a grateful squeeze, then stepped back and dried her eyes. "I'm sorry." She said. "But I get emotional where people I love are concerned. Harry's my best friend, like a brother, and I love him to bits. He's loyal, incredibly brave and so kind. He's a loving father and husband, a wonderful uncle and godfather and a great, great wizard!

"And yes," she admitted, "he's clever, and cunning, and ruthless when he has to be. But he learned that the hard way, and it isn't natural to him. But when he finds out -and he will, even if I don't tell him – what Rita was up to, he'll come after her. There'll be nowhere she can hide. And when he finds her, and when he's finished with her, she'll be lucky to get a job feeding Flobberworms at the Magical Menagerie!"

"He sounds a remarkable individual." Brennan remarked. "I would be interested to meet him. As for your feelings, cousin, they are laudable. I wish my own upbringing had left me better able to express my own so freely."

"There's no trick to it." Hermione told her. "Unless it's the one about not being embarrassed to be human!"

Ron had Apparated to New York overnight and retrieved Rita's files. "Not," he told the team at morning meeting, "that they're a lot of immediate help!"

"I've skimmed through them," Hermione went on, "and though there is a lot of shaky evidence, and more than a few death-defying logical leaps, it's not all nonsense. There's enough genuine information there to convince Ron and I that some wizards are playing fast and loose with the law, and in cahoots with some not very nice Muggles. Whether for profit or for power is yet to be seen.

"Having said that, it still doesn't help with this case!"

"Are you two actually still involved in this?" Camille asked. "Officially, I mean? Because you came here about the dead House-elves and Cole is in custody, and he's confessed."

Ron shrugged. "Cole confessed to killing one House-elf, but not the other. The physical and psychic evidence backs him up. So we're still looking for the second killer. I'm still on secondment to the FBS anyway, and they've asked me to keep at it until we have Prince in custody at least. Because he's wanted for killing a House-elf - one that seems to have belonged to his family, by the way – they want 'Mione to stay on as a consultant.

"Why? Are you that keen to see the back of us, Camille?"

"Well of course not!" Camille said firmly. "You've both been real assets, and we wouldn't feel comfortable dealing with this case without you and you're teasing me, aren't you, Ron?"

"Just a little bit." Ron admitted. "But seriously, the Aurors got a search warrant for Abelard Princes' flat and financials.

"There wasn't a lot in the flat, it seems. They did find one odd document which Harry reckons is a set of instructions for using what he calls a 'dead letter drop'. That make sense to anyone?"

"Yeah." Booth nodded. "It's an espionage technique. Somewhere like a hollow tree, or a specific trash-can in a park or somewhere, where spooks leave messages for each other. They leave signals – blinds up or down in a certain house, chalk marks on the sidewalk, that kind of thing – to show when there's a message. You have to be in the know to spot the signal.

"Prince can't be a pro, or he'd have memorized the instructions and destroyed them."

"Fair enough." Ron allowed. "Harry's up on this kind of thing – more than me, anyway.

"We also found, and this _is_ interesting, a lot of letters between Abelard and his sister. Now, we thought the Princes cut Eileen off when she married a Muggle, and according to the parents, Abelard wasn't supposed to have any contact with her. But it seems they both defied their folks and kept in close touch.

"There's a lot of personal stuff in there, and it seems Abelard retrieved his own letters after Eileen died, that needn't concern us right now. What there also is, though, is a lot of questions from him and answers from her about Muggles and the Muggle world."

"So Abelard Prince was interested in Muggles." Sweets said. "Is that unusual for a wizard?"

"Not in and of itself." Hermione told him. "Half-bloods and Muggle-borns are expected to keep in touch with their Muggle families, obviously. But for a Pureblood Slytherin to show that much interest would have raised more than a few eyebrows in our world! I mean, it's one thing for a Ravenclaw to have an academic interest in Muggles. It's another for a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor to have a Muggle-watching hobby or collect Muggle items. But Pureblood Slytherins are expected to have nothing but contempt for Muggles.

"At the very least, Abelards' interest would have made him a target for bullying at school. At the worst, the social set he grew up in, maybe even his family, might have disowned him for it!"

"Given that he seems to have been socially isolated anyway," Sweets mused, "the chance of belonging to something that this Scholomance offered would have been hard for him to refuse."

"There's more to it than that." Ron said. "He blamed his parents – their attitudes toward Muggles -for his sisters' death. The Snapes' marriage was stormy one, to be sure; they were both volatile people, there was never enough money and neither of them understood their son. But they loved each other very much, and when Tobias died suddenly of a heart attack, Eileens' own heart broke. By that time, Severus was a Death-Eater, and he wouldn't even acknowledge his parents. Eileens' family carried on ignoring her, and Tobias had nobody else. Poor Eileen died less than a year later.

"There's one letter Abelard wrote to Eileen after her death. He talks about what their parents did to her and how one day he's going to, and I quote, "rub their noses in Muggle and wizard togetherness until they bleed"!"

"So, he's no pro." Sweets said. "He's just a common, everyday psychopath. This Scholomance just fed into what was already there. He'd have killed eventually, with the right trigger. They just gave him a where and when. He's a tool, an instrument."

"He's dangerous, and he's in the wind." Booth said firmly. "We can analyze him later, Sweets. Right now, we need to catch him."

"That's not going to be easy." Ron said. "His main targets are both in custody. Wizard custody, at that. He may be barking mad, but I don't see him thinking he can break or sneak into FBS HQ to get at them.

"Given that, in his position, I'd go for secondary targets. We need to go back through Ritas' files and see if she made any other contacts. Any one of them could be in danger."

The boom was loud, but not close. It caught everyones' attention, but Ron and Hermione recognised it at once.

"Somebody just Apparated in!" Ron snapped.

Hermione stared at him. "Surely not..?"

"Let's find out!" Booth said. "The rest of you stay put!"

Ron, Hermione and Booth reached the area where the sound had come from. There was nobody there, but on the floor...

"Blood." Ron said. "What?"

"He must have splinched himself." Hermione said.

"Splinched himself?" Ron said. "An experienced wizard, used to travelling all over the world, splinches himself Apparating into an open space? That's no..."

In mid-word, Ron launched himself at Booth, knocking him to the ground. A jet of green light flew over them and crashed into the wall, sending a cloud of dust and chips everywhere. Hermione saw a figure and loosed a Stun Hex that missed.

"Damn!" She swore. "Ron, there's something wrong here! I just missed him."

"You?" Ron said incredulously.

"It happens." Booth pointed out.

"Not to Hermione!" Ron said.

"It's not that!" Hermione said sharply. "I'm not a marksman like you, darling. No, my spell _curved _somehow, as if it was pushed or pulled off line."

Ron looked up at the hole in the wall. "That's not right, either." He said. "If he was aiming at Seeley, it should be at least a foot to the right. You know, there's lot of high-tech kit here..."

"Wait a minute!" Booth interrupted. "You told us that magic messes technology up. Are you telling me that the opposite is true, as well?"

"It's a theory." Ron explained. "Most younger wizards are used to technology, more or less, but some of us have noticed that magic doesn't work so well around a lot of sophisticated tech. This place has more tech than I've seen outside Stark Tower!

"'Mione, get back to the others. Herd them into the main lab and get them to switch everything on, then stay there!"

Hermione knew that tone. She nodded once and took off at a run.

"Right!" Ron said. "Time for some wizard-hunting!"

"Well, we got a blood trail to follow." Booth said. "But won't your magic be messed up as well?"

"Might well be." Ron drew his Glock. "Just have to use this. Let's go."

The blood trail was clear. Either their quarry was too panicked to heal himself magically, or incapable of doing so.

"He'll be hurting, and getting weaker." Booth said. "If we don't find him soon, he's gonna bleed out!"

"Doesn't make him any less dangerous, or less barmy." Ron pointed out. "Might even make him worse."

By silent consent, they moved more carefully, covering each other at the corners and doorways. Eventually, the trail led to an open door. They looked through into a large, dimly-lit room.

"What is this place?" Ron asked in a low voice.

"Storage room." Booth said. "It's where they put the packing cases after things get delivered. Recycling picks them up about once a month. This isn't good. There's no way out unless you have a security card for the big doors, but there's a lot of cover and the light ain't great. We could just wait, he can't last much longer, losing so much blood."

"No." Said Ron. "But he might get desperate enough to try to Disapparate. In his current condition, that would be messy and probably fatal."

"Right." Booth decided. "I'm going in, cover me, then follow."

There was no response to their entry. They moved at a half-crouch among the stacked packing crates, keeping well apart but close enough not to lose sight of each other.

Then a cracked voice shouted "_Avada Kedavra_!" Ron ducked off to the side, but actually saw the jet of green light bend off course, crashing into a crate a couple of feet to the left of where he had been, and reducing it to ashes.

Booth spoke up in clear, carrying, steady voice. "Abelard! Listen, pal. Your magic isn't working right. You're bleeding and getting weaker. Give it up, buddy! Throw out your wand and come where we can see you. We can help you."

The answer was another Killing Curse, aimed at Booth. This also seemed to be pulled off course, diving into the floor and blowing a small crater. Booth didn't even bother to dodge, he just called out again. "See what I mean, Abelard? But we're both carrying Muggle weapons. We won't miss, and there's no way out of here except past us. It's over."

There was a moment's silence. Then the cracked voice yelled, "_Reducto_!" Several crates near Booth exploded into fragments that flew everywhere. Fortunately, instinct had set the FBI man in motion, diving flat on the floor.

"What the _Hell_?" He gasped.

"He's using bloody Reductor curses!" Ron spat. "He doesn't have to be accurate with those. If he blows up enough crates, the shrapnel will take us out! If he decides to use a fireball, we're up Shit Creek, mate. He could bring the whole place down!

"Abelard!" He yelled. "Stop being a prat! The people who sent you want us to kill you! They don't trust you, they're just using you. Pack it in and let us get you to a Healer!"

"You're lying, you Pureblood bastard!" The voice was less cracked as fury filled it. Abelard rose from behind a crate and pointed his wand: "_Ince_..."

He never finished the spell. Ron and Booth fired simultaneously, and neither missed. The heavy 9mm slugs shoved Abelard backwards to lie like a broken doll across a crate.

There was a lot of debriefing, of course. Then Booth, Brennan and Sweets were briefed on the case the rest of the team 'remembered' working on. Then Hermione asked Brennan to drive her somewhere, saying "The lads want to have some fun, and we're invited."

"I do not understand your rules." Brennan complained as she drove. "Why retcon some of the team, but not others? I know now that Sweets is a 'Squib', though I do not fully understand what that is, so that makes sense. But why not Booth and I?"

"Well," Hermione said, "Lance already knew about our world. Look, I'm a witch who was born into a Muggle family – we account for, oh, maybe twenty to twenty-five per cent of the wizard population. Lance is a Muggle who was born into a wizard family, we call them Squibs and they're a lot rarer than Muggle-born wizards. Less than two per cent of wizard births turn out Squib.

"In your case, you're blood-related to me, so legally you're allowed to know if I say I want you to. Booth? Well, he's a good man to have on your side, he's your partner - life as well as work – and both Ron and Piper gave him good references, so he gets to keep his memories. Apart from anything else, you won't have to fib to him about it in future, and you don't have to worry about letting something slip.

"By the way, we'll have to swap email addresses before I leave. I'll send you electronic copies of my genealogy research so you can do your own. I think there are still some Grissoms around; you might want to get in touch.

"Here we are!"

It was a small Laser-tag club that Ron and Booth had hired for a private party. Brennan and Hermione found two harnesses with guns ready, along with note that said _Suit up and get stuck in! _

"In many primitive cultures, combat games of this kind are a male preserve." Brennan remarked.

"Nonsense!" Hermione said cheerfully. "We're not in a primitive culture! Tempe, it's your day off. Spend it being who you are, not what you do!"

At that point, two shadowy figures appeared on the game floor, stalking from opposite directions.

"Aha!" One cried. "Sir Ronald, Knight of the Antiquarian Empire! You are no match for me!"

"Do not boast before your victory is sealed, Citizen Seeley of the Vulgarian Republic!" Replied the other.

"Oh, that puts the tin lid on it!" Hermione stated. "I can't be doing with this macho bullshit. Let's sort 'em out, Tempe!"

There were several routes to access the game floor. Hermione chose the pole, sliding down neatly and calling out as she did so. "Cease, foolish males! Or must I, Empress Hermione of the Illyrian Gynocracy, prove once again the supremacy of Woman?"

"It seems we have a common enemy, Imperial." Booth commented.

"So be it." Ron replied. "I can always annihilate you later, Republican!"

Fortunately, Hermione was quicker on the uptake than she was on her feet. She wouldn't have reached cover if she hadn't started running at the first line of dialogue. As it was, she was pinned down under heavy fire.

"Cousin Tempe!" She yelled. "A little help?"

Brennan was already in her harness. This might be more fun than she'd imagined.

**Epilogue**

The compact, fair-haired man at the head of the conference table gave a small smile. "It seems, Mr Pelant, that your friends at the Jeffersonian are every bit as formidable as you told us. Are you sure you can contain them?"

Pelant, a youthful-looking man with a badly-scarred face, nodded. "Yes, I've done it before on few resources. With what I have here, it will be childs' play. Unless, of course, they choose to call in their wizard friends!"

"What wizard friends?" A woman leaned forward from the opposite side of the table. "You don't understand my world, Mr Pelant. By now the Federal Bureau of Sorcery will have carefully edited the memories of your Muggle antagonists. They will remember nothing of magic, only a case in which they were assisted by British officials." She turned to the head of the table, she might have been forty or so, with a wealth of dark hair and a face which would have been lovely but for the deep, bitter lines etched into it and the sick fanaticism that burned in her dark eyes. "But that still leaves the wizards. I do not concern myself with the Skeeter woman. The man who murdered my father will ensure, from his position of power, that no one ever believes her again. But they have her files. Should something be done?"

The Master of the Scholomance looked to the Muggle side of the table. "Herr Blofeld?"

The person addressed was a big man, over six feet, with sleepy dark eyes and close-cropped hair. He acknowledged the Master, but aimed his reply at the woman. "The information Rita Skeeter compiled was carefully controlled by my people, Fraulein Riddle. We used a technique long known in Muggle espionage, placing enough real information amongst the nonsense to give the whole a certain credibility.

"Both the muggle and wizard authorities will feel obliged to follow the matter up because of this 'chickenfeed', and will thus be led exactly where we want them to go."

The witch addressed as 'Miss Riddle' nodded. "It seems my father badly underestimated Muggle cleverness." She allowed.

"Not the only mistake he made, Arabella!" The speaker sat next to Blofeld, a red-haired woman with indigo skin and yellow eyes. Her smile held more than a little venom.

Arabella Riddle seemed unperturbed. "My parents made many mistakes, Raven." She replied. "But what they did, they did from their hearts. That is what I shall inscribe on their monument when I raise it on the ruins of Dumbledores' tomb!"

"Your parents," The thin dark man sitting next to Arabella put in, "were wand-waving conjurors! They had no more idea than do you of the true nature and power of the Dark Arts, or they would not have been defeated!"

"Fine words!" Sneered another man from the wizard side. A thin, bald man with a scarred face and mismatched eyes. "Fine words, Justin, from a man who barely escaped death at the hands of his own apprentice!"

The smartly-dressed Muggle across the table from him laughed. "Careful, Arkham! You were less than triumphant yourself, faced with the sons of Sparda!

"All of you have made mistakes. After all, you're all only human!" His smile was suddenly full of gleaming white fangs.

The man next to him shook his head. He was hairless, and his red skin glistened in the light as if oiled. His face was almost fleshless, without lips or nose, and his blues eyes burned from under heavy ridges. "Be silent, Tesla!" He growled. "You have all the arrogance of your kind. The arrogance that led to their downfall.

"I have slept too long. This world has lost all order and respect, has it not, Herr Baron?"

The final wizard grunted assent. He was dressed in strange robes, and had a heavy, square face with a short beard. "You are correct, Colonel Schmidt. Mordo, at least, does not underestimate his foes."

The Master had begun tapping his fingers on the table in a characteristic four-beat rhythm. "Take your bickering elsewhere!" He barked suddenly. "You all have things to do, go and do them!"

The table cleared, leaving the Master confronting the flickering image of the Outsider, who had sat through it all with a sardonic smile. Now the Outsider spoke.

"They are so small." He said.

"Their world is small." The Master replied. "But it's the one we need. The right crisis, at the right time, here of all worlds, will bring either our old friend or his protege, the Marine, here. Only one of them could convince the Aesir to bring what you need, and I will have what I require."

"And if both come, my Lord Master?" Asked the Outsider.

"Then we are both dead men, my Lord Rassilon!" Was the reply. "But we're both used to that, aren't we?"


End file.
